11-year-old sentenced in second grader’s construction pit drowning

An 11-year-old was sentenced Thursday to two years at a youth detention facility for his role in the drowning death of a Georgia second-grader in a construction pit, according to a lawyer for the victim’s family.

The body of 8-year-old Noah Bush was found on May 16 after authorities in southeast Georgia searching for the boy drained the county-owned pit. Bush had been reported missing a day earlier after he went outside to play and never returned, his family’s legal team said.

Wayne County authorities did not initially suspect foul play. The child had wandered into the water-filled pit and drowned, they said at the time.

But Noah’s family said he was terrified of deep water and never would have ventured in voluntarily, Bush family attorney Mawuli Davis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Protesters in Jesup demanded a more thorough investigation by the sheriff’s office.

In July, authorities arrested a 10- and 11-year-old after evidence surfaced that Noah had been pushed into the water, according to the family’s attorneys. Three days later, the mother of the older child Natalie Hardison, was arrested on charges of giving false statements to police.

Davis attended Friday’s hearing, and said the 11-year-old admitted to pushing Noah into the pit and holding his head underwater. Both he and the 10-year-old, whose names were not released, were sentenced to two years’ confinement, the maximum punishment given their ages, Davis said. The younger child was sentenced last month. Juvenile court proceedings are mostly confidential.

Both were charged with simple battery, criminal trespass and concealing the death of another, according to Davis. The 11-year-old also faced an involuntary manslaughter charge for his role in Noah’s death, he said.

“The story they were told was that their son had accidentally drowned,” said attorney Francys Johnson, who is also representing the 8-year-old’s family. “They knew that was not true then, and today the same was confirmed in court as the 11-year-old juvenile confessed to this horrific homicide.”

Attorneys contend that Noah’s death was racially-motivated and said the 11-year-old even took part in the frantic search last spring, despite knowing that Noah was dead at the bottom of the pit. Noah was Black; the two children charged in his death are white.

Noah Bush was described by his family and teachers as “a bright, loving, and kind eight-year-old who enjoyed playing basketball and had a smile that could light up a room.”

His grieving mother, Demetrice Bush, said she thought the children responsible for her son’s death received a lenient sentence, calling Thursday one of the hardest days of her life.

“This isn’t justice,” she told reporters outside the courthouse. “My baby was 8 years old with a full life ahead of him, and two years is what the state of Georgia calls justice for an entire life that’s lost ... There is no peace, there is no comfort, there is no closure for me. I will live with this for the rest of my life.”

Noah’s body was found in what’s called a “borrow pit,” which is a place where soil, gravel or other materials are excavated and moved to another location typically as part of a construction project. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to calls seeking comment on the case.

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