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Student who warned officials about boy's gun files suit
By CARY DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published April 11, 2001 NEW PORT RICHEY -- A former Ridgewood High School student who said he warned authorities that Teddy Niziol had brought a gun to school has filed a negligence lawsuit against the Pasco County School District. Andrew Enerson, 19, filed suit on Monday in Pasco Circuit Court, asking for at least $15,000 in damages from the school district because officials allegedly refused to stop other students from picking on him and didn't listen to him when he told them Niziol had a gun on campus. Niziol, 16, was killed Jan. 19, 2000, in the Ridgewood High parking lot by his best friend, Steven Moschella, who was holding a loaded .22-caliber pistol when it accidentally discharged. Niziol had just handed the gun, which had been stolen during a rash of burglaries in St. Pete Beach, to Moschella as the teens drove out of the school parking lot. Hours before the shooting, Enerson gave school officials a note that contained a written exchange between Enerson's girlfriend, Samantha Lang, and Niziol. The note said that a student named Teddy was trying to sell a gun to someone identified only as Joey. School officials said they could not act on the note because it didn't contain any last names, nor did it indicate there was a weapon on campus. They said Enerson offered no additional information beyond the contents of the note. Enerson, however, said in the suit that he gave officials, including Ridgewood principal Art O'Donnell, enough information that they should have gone out and searched the parking lot for a gun. When school officials challenged his account days after the shooting, Enerson said there might have been writing on the back of the note that specifically mentioned there was a gun on campus. There was nothing written on the back of the note, however. "We think (the lawsuit) is without merit," Superintendent John Long said. "We intend to defend the principal and the staff at Ridgewood High vigorously." The lawsuit also claims that school officials were negligent before the shooting because they ignored numerous complaints from Enerson that he had been assaulted repeatedly by other students on campus. Enerson said he was so preoccupied with the threats that his grades dropped and he eventually withdrew from the school without graduating. One of Enerson's attorneys, Ted Karatinos of St. Petersburg, would not address the specific allegations of the lawsuit in an interview Tuesday with a Times reporter, saying only that the school's record of dealing with violence is evidence alone of negligence. Despite more than 100 fights and 25 incidents of drug and alcohol violations on campus during the 1998-99 school year, only one student was expelled, Karatinos said, citing the school district's figures. "This is a school safety issue," he said. Moschella, 17, pleaded guilty in October to a single felony charge of manslaughter by culpable negligence. He was sentenced to 60 days in jail, two years' house arrest and four years' probation.
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