The mother of a teenage son who took his own life last year due to feelings of isolation and loneliness is suing Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker for canceling winter high-school sports and shutting down schools during the coronavirus pandemic.
Lisa Moore told Fox News on Thursday that she believes Pritzker’s strict coronavirus restrictions contributed to her 18-year-old son Trevor’s death last October.
“My son died because of COVID isolation,” she explained. “He truly enjoyed being at school. That’s where his heart and soul was.”
In the lawsuit, Moore says, “Trevor was devastated that he didn’t have his senior year track and pole vaulting season. The final blow was when winter sports were canceled. Trevor committed suicide on October 21, 2020, a proximate cause of which was Governor Pritzker’s restrictions on high school sports programs.”
Moore said she noticed Trevor was a “little depressed” after Pritzker canceled the sports season.
“He’s a teenage boy. They need their friends. They need the interaction. They need the socialization,” the mother said.
The parents of three other student athletes joined Moore’s lawsuit against Pritzker, alleging that the governor’s coronavirus restrictions caused their children emotion and physical harm.
Pritzker responded to the lawsuit and defended his decision to cancel high school sports, arguing that high schools are ill-equipped to protect students from the coronavirus.
“Professional sports and college sports have significant resources for protecting their players,’’ the governor said, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. ‘‘For creating social distance, for example, by having multiple locker rooms; by making sure they have plexiglass everywhere that they need to separate the players; to test them on a much more regular basis than an individual high school or district could afford. That’s why there is a difference.”
Whatever the governor’s reasons, his lockdown “changed Trevor from who he was to the person that did this,” Moore said.
