The Plush family reached a $ 6 million settlement with Cincinnati over the unjustified death of the teenager

The city of Cincinnati will pay $ 6 million and commit to long-term improvements to its emergency response center to settle an unlawful death lawsuit with the family of Kyle Plush, a 16-year-old who suffocated in the backseat of his own van despite making several had 911 calling for help.

“The most important thing in the agreement is the reform measures. We have reached an agreement with the city in which an expert team with 911 experts from all over the country will be set up, ”said attorney Al Gerhardstein at a press conference on Friday that the reforms will be judicially monitored for a term of five years.

While there is no formal apology for Kyle Plush’s death in the agreement, Gerhardstein said it contains something far more important to the Plush family.

“The plush didn’t ask for an apology. They want action, and this agreement gives them action. And they don’t want platitudes on paper, they want to make sure that this is fixed, ”said Gerhardstein.

At the Friday afternoon press conference, Ron and Jill Plush described their son as a positive person who wanted positive change. Through the Kyle Plush Answer The Call Foundation, the Plushes seek to improve 911 communications across the country in honor of their son.

“This is a positive change,” said Jill Plush. “We’re going in the right direction.”

The settlement announcement arrived shortly before the three-year anniversary of Kyle Plush’s death, which resulted in an extensive review of the city’s 911 system and those trusted to handle the Cincinnatians’ most urgent calls.

“On the eve of this tragedy, he looks down on us and I think he’s very pleased with the outcome,” added Ron Plush.

“The emergency communications center and police department staff are dedicated officers who are committed to helping when people need them most,” city administrator Paula Boggs Muething wrote in a statement. “We will work every day to ensure that our city never works.” experiences another tragedy like that of the Plüsch family. The city strives to provide the most professional emergency response to all Cincinnatians. “

Plush died on April 10, 2018 in a parking lot across from the Seven Hills School he was attending. The teenager, unusually short for his age, was pulling items out of his minivan that afternoon when he was trapped on the bench in the third row.

AB 2018: When Kyle Plush asked for help, why didn’t officers find him?

His cause of death was described by Coroner Lakshmi Sammarco of Hamilton County as “chest compression suffocation.” “Positional Suffocation” by Attorney Joe Deters. A mechanism in the seats of his van pressed against his chest until he choked and died. Because of his small size and the fact that he was trapped at the end of the school day, no one saw him struggle around.

But before he died, Plush used Siri’s virtual assistant on his unreachable iPhone to make two calls to 911. In both cases, he gasped, cried, described his vehicle, and told 911 callers that he believed his life was in respect.

The first answering machine at Cincinnati’s 911 operator described the call as an “unknown problem” and dispatched two police officers without describing the vehicle or telling them about Plush’s declared fears for his life.

AB 2018: How did a student die in the Seven Hills parking lot? Prosecutor Joe Deters opens a full investigation

The officers drove to the scene but never left their patrol car or looked for parking nearby. Plush called again while they were around.

The second caller accidentally activated a Teletypewriter connection, which is intended for callers who are hard of hearing. As a result, the volume of the call was drastically reduced and she couldn’t hear Plush’s voice clearly. She ended the call and never recorded any information about it in the computerized mailing system that froze while she was on the phone.

A recording of the call includes audio from Plush repeatedly trying to wake Siri after Smith stopped responding to him.

A teacher discovered his body later that night.

The Plush family filed an unlawful death sentence against the city in 2019, personally naming the two 911 answering machines handling their son’s case and the two police officers Edsel Osborn and Brian Brazile who were sent to look for them.

Alleged former city administrator Harry Black and the city were aware at the time of Plush’s death that the ECC was struggling with inadequate staffing, inadequate training in the telex system, freezes in the computerized mailing system, system-wide outages and inadequate training in the use of wireless location technology and lack of training and supervision of local police officers.

In the years since then, the city’s public efforts to repair the ECC’s image have included sweeping 911 reforms, leadership changes, and staff training revisions. Still, the city’s lawyers did not attempt to dismiss the family’s lawsuit until 2019. A judge ruled in December 2020 that the lawsuit could continue.

According to a joint press release, the city has made improvements to its 911 call center in the years since Kyle Plush’s death, including: leadership changes and higher retention rates at ECC; updating mapping software in police vehicles with 911 caller locations; and change procedures for calls classified as “unknown problem”.

“You still have a long way to go, and with this team of experts we believe that this will significantly advance the reforms of the city,” said Gerhardstein on Friday. “In addition to the reforms, there is a financial agreement: the city will pay $ 6 million.” . And we hope that by paying this money, future city guides will ensure that this vital 911 feature stays in great shape and never deteriorates to the level it was when Kyle Plush called for help. “