https://madison.com/news/local/crime-courts/article_17ba5006-002c-11f0-ac8e-b7d802838457.html
Chris Rickert I Wisconsin State Journal Mar 18, 2025
The parents of two boys who died last year after falling through the ice of a retention pond at the Sun Prairie apartment complex where they lived are suing the city and school district and the school bus company that dropped the boys off, claiming they bear some responsibility for the deaths.
Antwon Amos Jr., 6, and Legend Sims, 8, died Jan. 8 and Jan. 6, respectively, after falling through the ice of the city-owned pond behind one of the main buildings at the Wildwood at Main apartment complex on the afternoon of Jan. 5, according to accounts at the time from their family and Sun Prairie and Dane County officials. The boys had just been dropped off by a Kobussen Buses school bus after attending classes at Royal Oaks Elementary School.
The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges the city of Sun Prairie, Sun Prairie School District and Kobussen knew the area where students were being dropped off was dangerous, and that children had been playing in the pond.
They “knew the pond was an open and obvious danger, knew kids were playing in the pond, knew the pond was a dangerous and deadly attractive nuisance, yet failed to take reasonable measures to ensure students, including Antwan Devonte Amos, Jr. and Legend Sims, were safe” while in the care of the district, the suit says.
It further alleges that the Sun Prairie Fire and Police departments did not have the proper training and equipment to rescue the boys after they went out onto the thin ice of the pond and fell through.
When police and firefighters “arrived on scene, they attempted to reach the boys using a throw rope. When that effort failed, they continued throwing the rope without success,” the suit says, and then “failed to take any other measures and/or change their rescue tactics to save the boys.”
No one met the boys at the bus stop when they were dropped off on Jan. 5, one of the parents’ attorneys, Robert Gingras, told the Wisconsin State Journal in May. He said the boys’ mother, Kiana Sims, had planned to meet the boys at the bus stop that day but that she couldn’t make it because a person she was having an appointment with arrived late to the appointment.
The suit largely echoes a claim made against the city and district last April. Photos included with that show first responders throwing ropes to the boys partially submerged in the pond, as well as divers trying to reach them. Gingras said Monday that the boys were conscious and breathing for at least eight minutes after the fire and police departments arrived. Gingras has also alleged that the school district was aware that children had been playing at the pond and that it was a danger and sent an email to parents in midDecember “expressing their concern that children were going down to the pond.”
Family of boys who drowned in Sun Prairie retention pond seeks damages from city, school district
Chris Rickert I Wisconsin State Journal
“In fact, children were getting on the school bus in the morning with their pants wet from being in the pond,” he said in May, and in light of those concerns, the city had a duty to put a fence around the pond – which only happened about two weeks after the boys died.
The suit does not ask for a specific amount in damages but notes that under Wisconsin law, parents can recover up to $500,000 for the wrongful death of a child. The claim filed in April by the boys’ estates and their parents sought more than $700,000 from the city and district for pain and suffering, funeral expenses and other costs related to the boys’ deaths.
The school district and city declined to comment on the suit and Kobussen did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. But school district policy in place at the time of the accident says that students in grades kindergarten and up are the responsibility of their parents or caregivers up until the time “the student boards the bus for school” and then again when “he/she gets off the bus on the return trip.”
District spokesperson Patti Lux also said in January 2024 that the bus stop where the boys were dropped off was at the corner where the pond is located, but “not located in front of the retention pond.”
The city installed a 6-foot-high chain-link fence around the retention pond within two weeks of the boys’ deaths but also has pointed out that there is no ordinance or zoning regulation requiring fencing around the city’s bodies of water.
“However, the city has installed signage around the ponds to educate the public and warn of hazards,” spokesperson Jake King said Monday, and “vegetative buffers are being installed around some ponds as natural barriers.”
He said the city will continue to follow state Department of Natural Resources and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines on pond design.
Under state law, people making claims against local government, including school districts, must first make them with the governments. If local officials deny them, the claims can be made in lawsuits filed against the government in county circuit court.
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