JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — (The video attached to this story is from a previous, related report)
The family of a Khlayah Wright, who was struck by a stray bullet in the 2018 shooting at a football game at Raines High School, is suing former Duval Schools Police Chief Michael Edwards.
Khlayah Wright’s attorney, Robert Spohrer says Khlayah has underwent major surgeries since the shooting.
“She has hardware that’s permanently implanted in there and she’s been determined to be disabled by the social security admin because of that injury," said Spohrer.
Spohrer says they sued the Duval county school board police for failing to provide adequate security but that trial ended in July with a hung jury, after the school district denied knowledge of any red flags that the shooting would happen.
“August the 19th one month later the statewide grand jury report came out. in which they said that it was the policy of the Duval county school board police to under report crimes at our schools here in Jacksonville," said Spohrer.
The recent report specifically called out former schools police chief Michael Edwards for quote ‘absolutely criminal' conduct in handling school crime including the Raines shooting.
Wrights attorney says that amounts to new compelling evidence.
“This family is very strong it’s a very loving family. They have been very strong for Khlayah but both the mom and Khlayah feel justice has not been served in this case," said Spohrer.
The new lawsuit names Michael Edwards as a defendant, along with the district as a whole.
The school district sent First coast news a statement that said, "Because this is pending litigation, any further district response will come within the context of the judicial proceedings."
The lawsuit is seeking $30,000 or more, claiming that Wright is suffering permanent disability because of the shooting and what her attorney says was neglect by DCPS.
The shooting also killed 19-year-old Joerod Adams and injured two others, including White.
Robert Howard, 16, was charged in the incident.
The lawsuit comes after a statewide grand jury found that Edwards showed "shocking disregard for student safety." The report says his actions resulted in more than 2,000 misreported incidents on school grounds.
Referencing this as well as reports by First Coast News where other officials spoke out about misconduct among DCPS, the lawsuit claims that the shooting was preventable.
The article referenced in the report: Former Duval schools officers speak out against department
The First Coast News report referenced was published in 2016, two years before the football game shooting.
But a former officer who spoke exclusively to First Coast News told us then that they suspected something like this would happen.
"I don't feel like what's going on there is the best thing," former officer John Hardin said. "I feel like some of the policies and things that have been enacted through the current administration are going to get children hurt, are going to get staff hurt and probably are going to eventually get an officer hurt."
This was referenced in the lawsuit as proof that the issues with DCPS were known beforehand.
The lawsuit claims that before Howard allegedly fired into a group of people leaving the game, he got into a fight with Adams. They were both "ejected," from the game but not arrested, which the lawsuit claims was negligence because if they had been arrested, the shooting would not have taken place.
What happened with the statewide grand jury report?
Edwards resigned early last year after a preliminary report blasted the district for quote “outright fraud” in reporting crime statistics.
The report says between 2016 and 2020, Edwards directed officers not to treat incidents of battery on a school employee as a crime. If the victim chose not to press charges, the report says Edwards told the officers to file an information report and close the case instead of an offense report.
This is against the law.
After reviewing more than 2,600 of those information reports, the statewide grand jury found the majority were felonies and not one of them was treated as a crime.
But due to a "quirk" in Florida law, no charges were officially filed against Edwards.
RELATED: Grand jury report accuses former DCPS police chief of having 'shocking disregard for student safety'
Edwards’ attorney, David Barksdale replied to our request for comment when the report was originally released, saying:
“In any event, the Grand Jury’s Final Report reports that the Office of Statewide Prosecution will not bring formal charges against Mr. Edwards. Mr. Edwards has devoted 36 years of his life to protecting and serving the citizens of Duval County. He is thankful for all the support he has received during this journey. He is proud of his 36 years of law enforcement service to our community.”
What's DCPS doing?
The Duval School County Board is bringing in the Florida Department of Education's Office of Safe Schools, which will basically do an audit to make sure the district is on the right track to stop this from happening again.
School Board Chair Darryl Willie says they'll also be partnering with the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office and Florida Department of Law Enforcement, taking a look at training and having people who are involved in the disciplinary process meet often to check for data discrepancies.
Willie also says Superintendent Dr. Diana Greene, who joined the district in 2018, made changes that have schools on the right track already.
Willie says he didn't know about the allegations against Edwards before the Grand Jury report.
"If you really look at what happened, we were always reporting the incidents that were happening," Willie said. "So regardless of if they weren't reported as criminal offenses or what not on that level, they were still facing code of conduct within our schools. So you weren't seeing students just go back into the classroom. You were seeing them face code of conduct and consequences from us."
Other school board members made recommendations and said they want to come up with more plans of action soon.