Widow sues police over recruit's death

NORFOLK, Va. (AP/WAVY) - A woman whose husband died after police academy training in Norfolk last year has filed a lawsuit against the former and current police chiefs and four training instructors.

Recruit John Kohn, 40, collapsed during Defensive Tactics Training on Dec. 9 and died in a hospital Dec. 18. A Virginia Department of Labor and Industry investigation reveals Kohn died after he suffered repeated hits to the head during a training exercise.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Norfolk Circuit Court by his wife, Patricia Kohn, who now has a 5-month-old daughter.

The lawsuit seeks $35 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

The lawsuit claims John Kohn died of gross negligence on the part of instructor Leldon Sapp and three other instructors.

Sapp is most noted in the repeated beatings that left Kohn unconscious. The suit says he and the others acted with willful and wanton conduct that left John Kohn dead.

Training procedures at the Norfolk Police Department's police academy were later revised to ban instructors from hitting recruits in the head.

Patricia is also suing former Chief Bruce Marquis and current Chief Sharon Chamberlin.

The State Labor Department report did not find the City of Norfolk negligent in his death. They only cited the City for failing to hand over records in a timely fashion.

Attorney Jim Lewis says the Kohn family was offered six figures in a worker compensation settlement, but Kohn's widow does not think this is a worker compensation case calling it gross negligence.

"Our view of it is the training is terribly designed and terribly executed. The results speak for themselves, and look what they did [to John Kohn]," said Lewis.

WAVY.com asked Lewis what about those who think Patricia Kohn's lawsuit is an attempted money grab.

"Yes, I am emotional. What do you think it is for Patty Kohn on father's day. What is it like for his daughter Sarah Kohn on father's day. what about birthdays? This is a very upsetting case," answered Lewis.

The Labor Department offered changes for the training, but many of the suggestions have already been implemented in the training program.

Here are the training changes since the death of recruit John Kohn:

• Recruits are NO longer intentionally hit in the head.
• Instructors and recruits receive training on head trauma.
• They are reminded about the importance of reporting head injuries they have or other recruits have.
• The Defensive Tactics training period is now spread over the entire training period instead of two solid weeks, and the time for the training is less than two hours a day.

Cities enjoy total immunity in cases like these, but employees have limited immunity and that is the reason the City of Norfolk is not named in the suit.