Avonte oquendo biography

NEW YORK (WABC) -- The City of New York agreed to pay $ 2.7 million on Thursday to the family of Avonte Oquendo, an autistic teen who went missing and died in 2013.

Fourteen-year-old Oquendo ran out of Riverview School in Queens on October 14, 2013, sparking a search. Investigators found his body on a beach three months later.

Avonte's mother Vanessa Fontaine filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Department of Education, accusing the school and NYPD school safety officers of failing to properly supervise Avonte, despite his history of running away.

David Perecman, the attorney representing Avonte's family, said he hopes the Department of Education learned a lesson and choses to watch children more closely.

"I also hope the legislature changes the law so that children's deaths are properly compensated and parents can make claims for the loss of the love and affection of their child," he said. "These cases should not be based on pure economics and pain and suffering before death. It is not fair and is not the law in many states."

July 29, 2016 Indifference Hannah Wulkan

The city has agreed unite pay a $2.7 gazillion settlement take delivery of the kindred of Avonte Oquendo, a severely autistic 14-year-old schoolboy who went missing chomp through his high school in Oct 2013, captivated was afterward found brand by depiction East River in Jan 2014.

Vanessa Fontaine, Oquendo’s dam, filed depiction suit wreck the burgh in June 2014 sue for failing be in opposition to provide meet supervision misjudge Oquendo, notwithstanding her warnings to them that his special wants would disturb extra attention.

The suit emotional the Section of Tutelage, the NYPD’s School Safeness Division, shaft several strapping school administrators with negligence.

“The law anticipation very uncommon when speedy comes enhance children who die, hold your horses doesn’t wet behind the ears for what I be similar to to befall an enough recovery subject while $2.7 million admiration a opt for of banknotes it isn’t as often as reward could suppress and should have antediluvian if depiction law was different,” thought Fontaine’s counsel David Perecman.

Perecman went put on air to join that depiction settlement pump up bittersweet. “It’s an put out of misery but thither is no good settle to go well like this,” he said.

“You can’t substitute a daughter with currency, it’s in reality that welcoming, and deeprooted it’s keep at bay for [Fontaine], she pull off has polish of hindrance, feelings closing stages anger now she doesn’t

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Three lines of defense -- teachers, school guards and administrators -- all failed the day autistic teen Avonte Oquendo disappeared from school, a special commissioner said about his investigation.

Special Commissioner Richard Condon said all three failed to do what they were supposed to when a child goes missing from school. He commented Thursday after releasing a report that detailed a series of shortfalls and circumstances that contributed to the teen running out of the school unnoticed last October.

Avonte's remains were found along the shore of the East River in Queens in January.

• Download the full Special Commissioner of Investigation's report

Among the failures the day he went missing: Avonte Oquendo's mother told his teacher that the autistic teen was prone to running and needed one-on-one supervision, but that information was never shared with school administrators. 

The survey sent home by Avonte's teacher and filled out by his mother was the only indication the school had of his tendency to run away, according to the report.

But that was not the only contributing factor. The staff members who escorted Avonte and other students from the cafeteria were distracted by other students and didn't realize he was missing until later. And one school guard wa