A 12-year-old boy who drowned in a St. Louis Park school swimming pool was part of a class of about 30 children being supervised by a teacher who was not a certified lifeguard, the family's attorney said Monday.
The boy, Abdullahi Charif, was discovered floating in the deep end of a swimming pool at a St. Louis Park middle school last Thursday. He did not know how to swim, according to the family's attorney, Fred Pritzker.
Charif was first taken to Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital and then transferred to St. Paul Children's Hospital. He was pronounced dead on Saturday.
Pritzker said the St. Louis Park school district has told them very little about what happened, citing its ongoing internal investigation.
"They want to know what happened," he said of Charif's family. "This was a mandatory gym class, and this child was not a swimmer."
Pritzker said the boy did not know how to swim. He also said the gym teacher was not a certified lifeguard and was supervising up to 30 students when Charif drowned.
He said the family wants to know how the school could allow a child who couldn't swim to go into the deep end of the pool. Also, he said, the family doesn't understand how anyone could not notice a drowning child.
"This lack of information only compounds the family's grief and mistrust," Pritzker said.
