Prosecutors have appealed a judge?s decision to dismiss reckless-endangerment charges against five Bowling Brook Preparatory School counselors in the death of a Baltimore teen.
The counselors, according to police, restrained the youth, then waited 41 minutes after he fell unconscious before calling 911.
But Carroll County Circuit Court Judge Michael Galloway ruled last week that reckless endangerment excludes inaction.
“We respectfully disagree with his interpretation of the law,” said David Daggett, Carroll County?s chief deputy state?s attorney.
The attorney general?s office will handle the appeal in the state?s second-highest court, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, Daggett said.
Isaiah Simmons III, of Baltimore, had been held down for nearly three hours after an outburst at the school on Jan. 23, 2007, county prosecutors said.
He lost consciousness and stopped breathing while being restrained, the prosecutors alleged.
Simmons? family and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People have called for felony manslaughter charges against the counselors instead of the misdemeanor reckless-endangerment charges.
The family and civil rights leaders are to hand-deliver a letter to the FBI this week demanding a thorough investigation and federal criminal and civil rights charges.
“You?re going to appeal now?” asked an outraged Marvin “Doc” Cheatham, head of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. “You made the mistake on what you gave the grand jury.”
Bowling Brook, a privately owned juvenile school in Keymar, was supervised by the state?s Department of Juvenile Services.
It closed early last year after Simmons? death, which the state medical examiner has ruled a homicide.
Simmons was sent to the school for armed robbery.
“It?s a clear case of a state agency having a responsibility to deal with a youth, and something went totally wrong,” Cheatham said. “The professionals in the great county of Carroll County did what?s expected of them ? to not bring justice.”
