Family says teen suffered brain injury from police horse at the State Fair of Texas

KTVT

By S.E. Jenkins, Erin Jones

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    DALLAS (KTVT) — The family of a teen injured by a Dallas police horse at the State Fair of Texas on Tuesday said the 17-year-old suffered a brain injury.

The State Fair of Texas is something Esther Macharia’s family looks forward to every year.

Especially, her 17-year-old son, Ian Macharia.

“My son was super, super, excited to be there,” she said.

Tuesday afternoon, they visited the car show and were headed to get a picture with Big Tex when the day took a dramatic turn.

“It was a moment that changed me, changed my family,” she said.

A Dallas Mounted Officer was patrolling in the Big Tex Circle around 3 p.m. when the horse became startled, the State Fair said Tuesday.

Esther Macharia said she turned around to see a Dallas police horse running towards her family.

The officer tried to regain control and in the process, Ian Macharia was injured, the Dallas Police Department said Tuesday, and the officer was bucked off the horse.

“There was a police on it but he fell down and so I look down and my son was right there,” she said. “He was seizing. He was having seizures on the ground. Then after he seized for awhile, he passed out.”

She said paramedics arrived about two minutes later and her son was taken to the hospital where he was told he had a brain injury.

No legal action has been taken yet, but Esther Macharia has hired an attorney.

“He’s dealing with a lot of pain, you know he has never had seizures,” she said. “His body aches. He’s confused about the whole thing.”

The family’s attorney, Ramiz Shamieh, is asking fairgoers for any video footage they have of the incident.

“We’re going to take action against the police and we’re going to take action against the state fair,” Shamieh said. “We want to find out exactly why this happened, we want to get justice for this family, and we want to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“A lot of things could’ve gone wrong at that moment,” Esther Macharia said.

She’s concerned about the time it took for paramedics to respond and said after this incident, she also thinks the mounted patrol should be removed from the fair.

“What I’ve seen from this incident is that it’s so easy for a horse, which I never thought before, to kill someone instantly,” she said.

“The safety of everyone at the State Fair of Texas is our number one priority,” the State Fair said in a statement Tuesday. “We are deeply saddened that a fairgoer and officer were injured … and we hope they make a full recovery soon. ”

CBS News Texas reached out to the State Fair of Texas and Dallas police for comment Thursday. So far, we have not received a response.

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