Family of man who drowned in harbor sues man who pushed him
Four years for pushing a man into the Inner Harbor, killing him, is not enough time for the victim's family. The Sun's Justin Fenton writes:
Dissatisfied with the punishment expected to be handed down Tuesday by a city judge, the family of a 22-year-old man who drowned after being pushed into the Inner Harbor in 2008 said it has filed a $5 million wrongful-death lawsuit against the man convicted for his death.
Wayne Black, a 21-year-old from Pasadena, is scheduled to be sentenced to a four-year prison term as part of his plea agreement. He pleaded guilty to shoving Ankush Gupta, a University of Maryland engineering student, into the harbor three years ago. The circumstances of Gupta's death had been a mystery until police received a tip that he had been pushed by Black, who later confessed.
Black was initially charged with first-degree murder, which prosecutors later downgraded to second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty on July 28 to involuntary manslaughter It carries a maximum penalty of 10 years.
Categories: Courts and the justice system, Downtown
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We want this to be seen by the family, who might want to come back and look at the comments. But we wanted to put it out there that we have first hand information about this case. First of all, Ankush’s drowning was closed as an accidental death. It took 6, 7, even 8 different times contacting the police and trying to tell them the real facts surrounding his death; even being hung up on and talked down to is what was endured to make known what really happened to Ankush. The cops had everything they needed for a good period of time and still waited until after officer Sylvester was fired for man-handling a skateboarder at the harbor to arrest Wayne. It seemed like they were trying to make an excuse for that vicious officer by using Ankush’s death to prove a point.
As for Wayne Black, he absolutely KNEW he killed that boy that night. No question about it, Wayne knew exactly what happenend to Ankush from shortly after the incident happened. Wayne said that he heard the boy screaming for help but that it sounded weird to him, because he was taking on water drowning. As for his friends, he was too worried about what they would think about him, he was “too cool” to jump in and save Ankush, He made the decision to run away and leave Ankush drowning in the harbor.
Since the inident, he’s been known to make comments among chosen few that made no sense up until now, such as, “I hve reasons why I don’t cut my hair,” but when asked why by an outsider of his chosen few, would never answer the question. That was inside bragging.
One of the guys, probably one of the skaters who was asked at the inner harbor if they had seen anything and lied, his girlfriend saw on the news that Ankush had drowned and notified everybody that was there that night what had happenend to Ankush, including Wayne. So he had known since day 1 what had happened to Ankush.
Up until a certain point, Wayne was ready to have all his little skater friends lie for him at court. The story was going to be, he didn’t say what boy had been pushed into the water at the inner harbor and that he hadn’t pushed Ankush, it was someone else. That was until he recieved his discovery and “discovered” that that lie would not work.
I hope that this has brought peace to you, and the untire Gupta family. The word of a Christian.
Posted by: GODseesALL | August 30, 2011 2:57 PM