黑料福利社

The Yakima School District has paid the family of a slain teenager $500,000 to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit in a 2017 gang-related killing.

The estate of Kabin Smith and the school district had the case dismissed with prejudice in Yakima County Superior Court on March 30 under the terms of the settlement. The dismissal means that neither side can revive the suit, even if circumstances change.

In return for the payment, the 14-year-old Yakima boy鈥檚 family released the school district from further liability, said Rod Nelson, the family鈥檚 attorney.

鈥淲e felt it was a compromise,鈥� Nelson said in a Tuesday interview after the district made the payment to the estate. 鈥淲e felt that anytime you have a death of a young child like that, no amount of money is going to take away the pain and the loss, but it was a compromise to avoid putting my clients through a painful trial.鈥�

Kabin was killed after he had walked out of an in-school suspension room at Eisenhower High School on April 24, 2017. Two Sure帽o gang members, Luiz Alfredo Barrera and Jeremiah Luciano Peralez, were convicted for their roles in Kabin's death after entering Alford pleas to second-degree murder.

In a statement provided by YSD spokesperson Kirsten Fitterer, the聽Yakima School District believes its employees were not responsible for Kabin鈥檚 death but chose to settle to avoid the risks and costs of a trial.

鈥淚t is important to emphasize that this settlement was funded entirely by insurance money and, as such, has no financial impact on the YSD budget or operations,鈥� Fitterer wrote.

Nelson likewise believed he could have proved in court that district officials failed to follow their own rules regarding in-school suspension and ensuring Kabin didn鈥檛 leave campus without authorization.

Fight at school

Kabin started school at Eisenhower on the day of his death. He got into an altercation with another student, was accused of 鈥渢hrowing鈥� gang signs and聽was dressed in red, according to court documents. District officials used that as the basis for placing him in in-school suspension for gang activity and wearing gang attire, Nelson said.

The color red is typically associated with Norte帽o street gangs, while their rivals, the Sure帽os, use blue as their color.

The other student involved in the fight, identified in court papers as Joshua Pulliam, was not punished, Nelson said. He described Pulliam as a 鈥渂ad actor鈥� who was engaged in a serial rape spree at the time of the incident.

Pulliam pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree rape, second- and fourth-degree assault and felony harassment in connection with three assaults on local trails. He was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison in 2018, and will be under state supervision for the rest of his life.

After the confrontation, Kabin was questioned by Assistant Principal John Gonz谩lez and admitted that he was a member of a Norte帽o gang and that he had challenged Pulliam's claim to being a member of the same gang, the school district said in court filings.

Since it was Kabin鈥檚 first day at school, he had no schoolwork to do while in the suspension room, Nelson said.

鈥淭here was nothing for him to do but literally stare at the wall,鈥� Nelson said.

YSD, in court papers, said Kabin was placed in suspension while waiting for a return phone call from his mother.

Shooting on walk home

Kabin left the room and wandered around the school鈥檚 hallways for an hour and a half before leaving to make the 7-mile trek to his home in Union Gap. Nelson said school security failed to find him in the building, and his family was never contacted about the incident or his departure.

It was while Kabin was walking home, through an area that Nelson described as being under Sure帽o control, that he was shot in a drive-by shooting, with Peralez driving the car and Barrera firing the shots that killed him.

Yakima police said that Kabin鈥檚 red clothing may have led Peralez and Barrera to believe he was a rival gang member. In a probable cause affidavit, a witness told police that Peralez said he heard Kabin giving a Norte帽o hailing sign before he picked up Barrera to deal with him.

Kabin鈥檚 family and Nelson vehemently deny that Kabin was a gang member, and said he just liked the color red. Nelson said the account of Kabin giving a gang call was 鈥渉earsay upon hearsay upon hearsay鈥� that would never have been admitted in the civil trial.

The school district was prepared to call Peralez and Barrera to the stand to testify about Kabin shouting the gang call at them, and said it was the gang members, not the district, who were responsible for Kabin's death.

Nelson said that YSD鈥檚 gang expert, Yakima police Detective Ilfonso Garcia, said Kabin was not a gang member.

Garcia said in a deposition that Kabin did not meet the statutory criteria to be considered a documented gang member or associate.

However, Garcia concluded his report saying that Kabin was killed for portraying himself as a gang member by wearing gang-colored clothes, giving a gang call and telling Gonz谩lez that he was a gang member, court documents said.

Nelson said the district did not make any specific commitments to policy changes as part of the settlement, but said it was likely that some adjustment was made after a payout of that size.