Cnn
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A school authority pays a settlement of $ 10 million in the death of 16-year-old Imani Bell, a basketball player from Atlanta, whose death in 2019 led to murder cathers against two coaches due to heat-related injuries, the family's legal team said.
The payment from the The Clayton County Board of Education, which monitors the Elite Scholars Academy outside of Jonesboro in Atlanta, will solve a civil complaint submitted by the girl's family last year, the lawyers said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Trainers now know that they – and school – are being held accountable if they do not protect their children from creating heat,” said lawyer L. Chris Stewart during a press conference.
Co-Counsel Justin Miller added: “It didn't have to happen and it never has to happen again.”
Part of the money will go to the Keep Imani Foundation, which was founded by the Bell family last year and which aims to convey scholarships, glasses for disadvantaged young people and cold tubs for student athletes, said Miller.
“We will concentrate in particular on the next generation to convey important principles or actions that show that you have the power to achieve everything you have planned!” The foundation's website says. “We plan to keep Imani through several friendly acts, programs that help young people and pass on the positive nuggets that they left with us every day!”
In the lawsuit it was claimed that coaches and administrators of the Elite Scholars Academy do not follow any security guidelines, including the school system's heat index policy. The agreement did not include any admission of misconduct, the lawyers said.
The school authority did not answer a comment on the request from CNN.
On August 13, 2019, Imani took mandatory conditioning exercises outdoors, as in a report by Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the heat index was exceeded by 100 degrees that day, and the temperatures floated between 92 and 97 degrees. She collapsed after led stairs in a football stadium, the report says.
The cause of death was “hyperthermia and rhubdomyolysis during the physical exertion with a high ambient temperature,” says the autopsy report of the GBI. No existing conditions have been found, the report says.
Hyperthermia is a disease in which the body is dangerously overheated, and rhubdomyolysis is a syndrome in which muscle fibers die and release proteins and enzymes into the blood.
In the summer of 2021, a Grand jury of Clayton County raised the trainer of Imani, Larosa Maria Walker-Askere, and the coach's assistant, Dwight Broom Palmer, because of the second degree murder and said, the couple “regardless of malice, caused Lmani Bell's death.”
They were also charged with the cruelty of second degree against children, involuntary homicide and ruthless behavior.
According to lawyers from the Bell family, both have not guilty. The two were released from custody last year after the deposit of 75,000 US dollars was published, reported CNN partner Wxia. It is unclear from online court files when a negotiation date is set, but the accused submitted applications for immunity and imposed the indictment. The hearings for December 22nd and February 22nd are defined in front of Clayton County's Supreme Court, as the records prove.
The lawyers of Walker-Askere denied the criminal allegations and said that she was “on her first day as a coach of the girls' basketball team, and she was on the management of the sports director and the Elite Scholars Academy employee to carry out this conditioning activity,” said court reports.
When CNN turned to Palmer last year, a man who answered the phone said “no comment” and put on. Palmer's lawyer did not answer at CNN's request for comments.
Death was initially ruled. Eric Bell, Imani's father, thanked him about learning the criminal charges last year.
“It is refreshing, but at the same time we want to continue to fight for justice,” he said.
Miller believes that the arrests that were first charged against coaches who were charged for negligence were charged against murder suspicions, he said. The lawsuit aimed to ensure that no other children had suffered in the fate of Imani, he said at the time.
“The coaches have to think twice about the level they are willing to get athletes to win,” said Stewart when she announced the lawsuit last year.
