MOTHER SEEKS REVIEW IN SCHOOLYARD DEATH.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer LOS ANGELES Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. - The mother of a 13-year-old boy killed in a schoolyard fistfight wants the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office to reconsider its decision not to file criminal charges against the other boy. Though school officials said the fight that killed 13-year-old Juniper Intermediate School student Stephan Corson last November was not racially motivated, Mary Corson's attorney said the other student called Stephan a racial slur prior to the fight. ``The reason Stephan engaged in the fight was that the N-word was used,'' attorney Melanie Lomax Melanie E. Lomax (April 12, 1950 – September 10, 2006), was a civil rights lawyer and former head of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Lomax was the daughter of Lucius Lomax, an attorney, and Almena Davis Lomax, a civil rights activist and publisher of the said at a news conference in her Los Angeles office. ``That would explain why a kid with a good record and no history of fighting would be combustible com·bus·ti·ble adj. Capable of igniting and burning. n. A substance that ignites and burns readily. in that manner.'' Prosecutors declined on Friday to file charges against the other 14-year-old boy in the Nov. 19 incident, saying he acted in self-defense (Law) in protection of self, - it being permitted in law to a party on whom a grave wrong is attempted to resist the wrong, even at the peril of the life of the assailiant. - Wharton. See also: Self-defense in what was termed an ``excusable homicide EXCUSABLE HOMICIDE, crim. law. The killing of a human being, when the party killing is not altogether free from blame, but the necessity which renders it excusable, may be said to be partly induce by his own act. 1 East, P. C. 220. .'' In their report, prosecutors noted 11 witnesses said Stephan started the fight, and that a teacher told investigators that after she separated the boys, Stephan reached around her and punched the other boy, who then struck back. Stephan fell, hitting his head on a concrete surface, the report said. Lomax questioned whether the other boy, whose name has not been released because of his age, acted in self-defense because she said three students who were witnesses said Stephan was walking away when he was struck from behind. ``I have heard my son was walking away. (The other boy) ran up behind him and hit him, and now I'm led to believe from the D.A.'s report that none of that's important. Stephan started the fight, therefore he deserves to die,'' said Mary Corson, who clutched a picture of her son. ``This little boy did not deserve to die the way he did.'' Corson said she doesn't wish any harm on the other boy or his family or that he spend time in jail. ``I do not believe his life should be taken for Stephan's. I want him held accountable and responsible. I want him to be responsible for what he did,'' Corson said. ``My son is dead. The ground didn't do it. He was killed by (the other boy).'' The death of Stephan was ruled a homicide homicide (hŏm`əsīd), in law, the taking of human life. Homicides that are neither justifiable nor excusable are considered crimes. A criminal homicide committed with malice is known as murder, otherwise it is called manslaughter. by the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Coroner officials said Stephan died from damage to his spinal cord spinal cord, the part of the nervous system occupying the hollow interior (vertebral canal) of the series of vertebrae that form the spinal column, technically known as the vertebral column. - acute cervical cervical /cer·vi·cal/ (ser´vi-k'l) 1. pertaining to the neck. 2. pertaining to the neck or cervix of any organ or structure. cer·vi·cal adj. spinal cord injury Spinal Cord Injury Definition Spinal cord injury is damage to the spinal cord that causes loss of sensation and motor control. Description Approximately 10,000 new spinal cord injuries (SCIs) occur each year in the United States. due to blunt-force trauma - caused either by a punch thrown by the classmate or from hitting the ground with his chin. Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic HOPE, called for the U.S. Attorney's Office and the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the fight, which Ali said was racially motivated. ``Racism and a double standard of justice was involved from the very beginning,'' Ali said at the news conference with Corson and Lomax. He criticized the Sheriff's Department's investigation as ``tainted'' and not based on ``solid testimony of witnesses who were there.'' A spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office said the case was carefully reviewed after an in-depth investigation by sheriff's detectives. ``We carefully reviewed the findings of the Sheriff's Department as well as those of the coroner's office,'' said spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons Famous people named Gibbons include:
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