Two parents in Kansas were hit with a claim for $132,000 in damages after their young son accidentally pulled down a statue in a community center in the city of Overland Park. But the boy’s parents claim that the statue itself was the real source of danger.
Security camera footage, included in a report from Kansas City station KSHB, shows young Troy Goodman and another child playing in a public area of the Tomahawk Ridge Community Center, his mother seated nearby. The boy steps on the statue’s base and touches it, the video shows, then seems to try and stop it as it topples onto him.
According to KSHB’s interview with Sarah Goodman, the boy’s mother, the incident occurred during a wedding reception. Later, the Goodmans received a letter from an insurance company representing the city of Overland Park. The letter claimed that they were liable for damage to the statue because they weren’t monitoring their children closely enough, and put the price tag at $132,000.
Sarah Goodman also rebutted claims of negligence, saying that “My children are well supervised, but all people get distracted.”
The video shows the glass-covered statue toppling onto the boy even as he struggles to hold it up, striking him in the face on its way down. Sarah Goodman points out that the sculpture was “not protected, not held down,” and says her son has “been having bad dreams every night” since the incident.