Cole Hagan | His High School Friends Brutally Attacked Him Now His Parents Are Suing
Cole Hagan, 16, was at a pool party in Lake Jackson, Texas, on December 3 when a few of his peers from Brazoswood High School lured him outside where he was ambushed by another student, 17-year-old Reid Mitchell.
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Cole Hagan : The family of a Texas teen who suffered a brutal attack at the hands of his classmates has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against several of his peers and their parents.
Cole Hagan, 16, was at a pool party in Lake Jackson, Texas, on December 3 when a few of his peers from Brazoswood High School lured him outside where he was ambushed by another student, 17-year-old Reid Mitchell.
Mitchell was charged with aggravated assault, along with Logan Huber, 18, and Ayden Holland, 17, who were accused of luring Hagan outside to be assaulted.
Although Hagan returned home from the hospital in time for Christmas with his family, the Brazoswood High School football player spent most of the month of December in a Texas Medical Center hospital and rehabilitation center after a vicious beating outside of a house party in Lake Jackson on December 3rd.
He is now in outpatient rehab at TIRR Memorial Hermann undergoing speech, physical, and occupational therapy, his family told Insider.
The 16-year-old suffered severe head and body injuries.
The Hagan family filed a lawsuit against 16 people, seeking an excess of $50 million in damages and naming several of Hagan’s peers and their parents, who the lawsuit said “knew or should have known of the plan to attack Cole Hagan.”
“The Hagan family is going to pursue justice in this case,” said Loren Klitsas, the family’s attorney. “Their son Cole, a star football player, is permanently damaged, and they have no choice but to pursue the parties that are responsible for it. It’s horrible.”
The suit accused Mitchell of assault and Huber and Holland of the threat of bodily injury. The three have also been accused of making “false and defamatory statements” and of injuring Cole Hagan’s reputation.
After giving their initial statements to police following the attack, Huber and Holland returned to the police station to change their stories, saying the assault on Hagan was sparked by Hagan’s behavior toward their female friends. Those claims weren’t corroborated by police, nor was any evidence to support them included in police affidavits, Insider previously reported.
Huber’s attorney, Scott Brown, said he was confident his client would be proved innocent of the claims in the Hagan family’s lawsuit.
Logan Huber, another student accused of being involved in the attack, initially told police that he witnessed “Reid Mitchell punch (Cole Hagan), bear hug him, slam him to the ground and then get on top of him and elbow him in the face,” according to the affidavit.
Mitchell then called one of Hagan’s friends, saying “come get your boy.” Two of Hagan’s friends found him “laying in the street bleeding from his ears,” per the affidavit.
“We believe that, unfortunately, he was just an innocent pawn in all of this with no knowledge of exactly what was going to happen, the way that it happened,” Brown said.
Other students were also accused of the threat of bodily injury as the lawsuit said they knew of the attack before it happened and didn’t stop it. One student was accused of sending photos of Hagan to Mitchell “to commence the plan to brutally assault” the unwitting teen. The students and their families could not be reached for comment.
“It is shocking because this is a small town, and these kids all know each other,” Klitsas said. “They all hang out together, and that’s why it’s such a head-scratcher that such a violent act could be done by this mob against a really nice kid.”
The parents involved who were accused of negligence: Robert Brandon Mitchell, Trista Wylde Huber, Thomas Holland, Wendi Holland, Hailey Vitek Rodd, Steven Rodd, Paul Cagle, Shelley Stroud, and Rodney Stroud. They could not be reached or did not respond to requests for comment.
After Hagan was initially assaulted, he was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston. With multiple brain bleeds and skull fractures, as well as a broken collarbone, Hagan was placed on a ventilator.
When he regained consciousness, Hagan thought he had been in an accident, and the first thing he did was ask if his friends were okay, his 36-year-old brother Cory Hagan told Insider. Hagan’s brother described him as someone who “loves his friends” and “would do anything for them.”
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