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Parents Still Have Few Answers On Son's Death, Restraint

By Dave Reynolds, Inclusion Daily Express

November 17, 2003

PARCHMENT, MICHIGAN--

Monday would have been Michael Renner-Lewis III's 16th birthday.

But the teenager who had autism died on August 25 -- the first day of school -- after he was restrained by at least four staff members.

Nearly three months later Michael's parents still have few answers.

"The thing that hurts me is . . . I cannot get any information," Michael's mother, Elizabeth Johnson, told the Kalamazoo Gazette. "I am upset at the school. I'm angry, frustrated . . ."

School officials called Johnson around 1:00 that afternoon to tell her that Michael had experienced a seizure, that he had become "agitated" about 30 minutes earlier, but that he appeared to be recovering well.

Around 1:25 a back-up caregiver arrived to pick up Michael but found him unconscious, lying on his stomach with his hands behind his back. She immediately started CPR. The Parchment Police Chief, responding to a 911 call, arrived at 1:57 and started using a portable heart defibrillator to try to resuscitate the teen.

By 2:30, Michael was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

An initial autopsy report showed "no obvious anatomical causes" of death. While waiting for the results of toxicology tests, investigators have been consulting with nationally-recognized experts on restraint-related deaths.

"I was horrified -- horrified is the word -- to hear that Michael was being restrained in school," Johnson said. "I never discussed restraints with the school, and if he was being restrained, he should not have been."

 

 

 

 

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