The mother of a 17-year-old Ingraham High School student shot and killed by another student inside the school in November 2022 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Seattle Public Schools this week, alleging the district’s negligence led to her son’s killing.
A 15-year-old boy pleaded guilty and was sentenced June 10 for shooting Ebenezer Haile five times in the back after getting into a fight inside a school bathroom over possession of the gun used in the killing. The shooter, who was 14 at the time, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, first-degree assault and unlawful possession of a firearm and was sentenced to be incarcerated in a juvenile rehabilitation facility until his 21st birthday, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.
The Seattle Times typically does not name juveniles accused of crimes unless they’re charged as adults.
Attorneys for Haile’s family filed the complaint Tuesday in King County Superior Court, alleging the school did not adequately protect students from the shooter, who had a known “violent propensity and affinity for guns and weapons” and who had been suspended for bringing weapons to school one month before killing Haile, according to the complaint.
In a statement Thursday, Seattle Public Schools declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuit, but said the district “generally disagrees with the proposition that the actions of an individual that resulted in a shooting was the fault of the district.”
“[Seattle Public Schools] also recognizes the challenges that our society faces with widespread access to firearms and disregard by some to the tragic harm they can cause,” the statement said.
Haile’s mother, Tsedale Woldemariam, declined to answer questions about the lawsuit through her Seattle attorney, Cheryl Snow, who said in a statement Wednesday that Haile’s death “could have readily been prevented.”
The complaint does not specify the amount in damages Haile’s family is seeking, but a tort claim notice filed in late May said the family sought $45 million.
According to the complaint, school officials failed to protect Haile by not adequately disciplining or supervising the shooter after he brought weapons to school in October 2022, and failed to intervene after a student reported the boy for acting “agitated and aggressive” on the day of the shooting.
The morning of Oct. 3, 2022, a student reported to school security that the boy had threatened her with what she thought was a gun inside an all-gender bathroom. Someone called 911 about three hours later to report the boy for threatening other students with a knife and a BB gun inside the school, the complaint states.
School employees found the boy and brought him into an office where Ingraham Principal Martin Floe and Assistant Principal Zack Elvig searched his backpack, finding a fixed-blade knife and a black BB gun designed to look like a handgun.
A school principal or their designee must search a student’s possessions if there’s reason to believe the student has an illegally possessed firearm, under state law.
Under school district policy, students who bring weapons that appear to be firearms to school — also a violation of state law — can be suspended or expelled for up to one year and must undergo a threat assessment to determine what safety measures should be taken to keep others safe, the complaint states.
But Haile’s family said in their lawsuit that school officials suspended the boy for fewer than three days and never conducted a threat assessment, allowing the boy to return to school with “no apparent safety plan” in place.
School officials failed again, the complaint alleges, by not adequately responding to reports of the same boy’s behavior the morning of the shooting.
At about 9:15 a.m. on Nov. 8, 2022, a student who was closely associated with the shooter reported to a teacher that he was worried “something was going to happen.” About a half-hour later, a person reported the shooter was acting aggressively to school security. Neither the teacher nor security personnel — who remained in their office instead of searching for the boy — acted on the reports, the complaint alleges.
Surveillance camera video recorded inside the school that morning shows the boy pulling a gun from his backpack and shooting Haile multiple times in the back, then pointing the gun at other nearby students and firing until the gun is emptied, the complaint states.
Haile would not have been killed had Seattle Public Schools taken “reasonable steps” to keep students safe from a boy known to bring weapons to school and threaten other students, the complaint alleges.
“[Seattle Public Schools] has to wise up and has to make the safety of its students and employees a priority,” Snow’s statement said. “Ingraham High School’s naive, Pollyannaish approach to safety is inexcusable.”