"...What happened is his child tried to eat a hamburger too fast and wound up choking. That is the proximate cause of his death. The business with the cell phones and everything else has very little to do with it..."
You are 100% correct. The poor child died because his airway was blocked and oxygen was eliminated to his brain, heart, and bloodstream. Brain damage and subsequent death likely occured within moments of each other.
It seems that many are willing to embrace the whole "blame game" right off the bat. My understanding is that contemporary students "sass" teachers on a whim these days. Maintaining order amongst these little angels must take an enormous amount of effort, what with a couple hundred kids in a typical school...all enamored with their cellular telephones.
I find it difficult to believe a teacher encountered upon a student choking to death and promptly slapped the telephone out of the hands of a student calling emergency rescuers. There has got to be more to this story.
~ Blue Jays ~
Yes, I am as anti-NEA as anyone but in this case the most likely thing is that 911 had already been notified, the students and teachers knew it, and then a bunch of students took it as a opportunity to wip out their cell phones and call friends, ready to claim they were calling 911 if a teacher confronted them.
Even if this kid was calling 911, I can't see how a lawsuit could move forward if the teacher is accused of stopping the 5th, 10th, or 15th call to 911.
911 recordings and cell phone records should be able to determine if a teacher cut off the first call to 911, so the truth will come out.