SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2010 junior from A20 Cokinos called his father after


the accident. Cokinos remem- bers speaking calmly, thinking about what he’d say before it. “It sounds like you’ve got this under control,” he recalled his dad saying. His department’s investiga-


tion concluded that if he had been driving 30 mph instead of 56, he could have stopped in time. The department also fault- ed Junior for trying to cross the road where he did. “As soon as I saw him, he was


at a full sprint,” Cokinos told internal affairs investigators. “By the time I saw him, he ran that fast into the road.” Cokinos repeated the account


in several interviews and said he spotted the child as he ran near the double yellow marking on the road. He was issued two citations:


speeding and negligent driving. He pleaded guilty to the former, and a judge found himnot guilty of the latter, saying there was no evidence of errant driving be- yond speed. Cokinos was fined $160, and he went forward with his career on the force. He later applied to an opening


on a small, coveted street crimes unit, which is deployed to hot spots across the county. Although he was among the


least experienced of the 10 candi- dates, Cokinos had a file full of commendation letters from citi- zens. In answering interview questions, Cokinos quoted exten- sively from U.S. Supreme Court and Maryland appeals court opinions governing police proce- dures. “He stood head and shoulders


above everyone else,” said Sgt. Jim Brown, a supervisor in the street crimes unit.


School smarts Before the collision, Junior


was shy and rarely spoke up in class. In early 2009, he returned to school with the conspicuous- ness of a wheelchair and unsure whether others could hear his faint, short sentences. By then he’d undergonemulti-


ple operations. Doctors fused vertebrae in his neck and insert- ed a pump under his skin to deliver medicine to his spinal fluid thatmade hismusclesmore relaxed. He could move his feet slightly but couldn’t walk, couldn’t turn pages, couldn’t hold a pencil. Rocky HillMiddle School pro-


vided a full-time aide, Tom McAuliffe, 42. But no one knew exactlywhat the brain injury had done to Junior’s school smarts. Shortly after his first day back


at school, Junior took amultiple- choice science quiz. Junior mo- tored to a hallway, setting up behind a table withMcAuliffe so that he could dictate answers without disturbing other stu- dents. Junior got an A. He and McAuliffe made quite


a pair. One shy and reserved, the other talkative and given to ad- dressing uncomfortable situa- tions with sarcasm. “Did you just say, ‘Call me


princess’?” McAuliffe asked one day after Junior had struggled to say photosynthesis. Before a spaghetti dinner


hosted by the Jovels to raise money for Junior’s care, McAu- liffe asked about the dress code. “Get a haircut,” the kid told him. In fall 2009, Junior notched


six A’s and one B. Months later, he presented to McAuliffe the classes he would be taking in his upcoming freshman year in high school.Honors geometry, honors science and honors history were in the lineup. “Dude, that’s a lot of work,”


McAuliffe said. “Pick a foo-foo class.Where’s art appreciation?” “I want to do it,” said Junior,


who instead added a very non- foo-foo honors English class.


No victim Junior’s father continued his


job as amanager at aMcDonald’s inside the National Air and Space Museum. His mother scaled back her job as a house cleaner to care for her son. She works him through two to three hours of physical therapy each day—at home using tinyweights and an electrical stimulationma- chine. She also takes him to a nearby indoor swimming pool, where if she or her husband held Junior up, he couldmove his feet enough to walk through the water. His parents knewhe had fewer


social outlets. Kids his age were moving on to the independence of teenage life. Norma took him to an adolescent therapist. “Do you get upset?” Kathleen


Gallagher, director of the Alpha Omega Clinic in Bethesda, asked him. “I get upset that my mom gets


upset,” Junior said. During one session, he told


Gallagher he planned to walk again. But if he didn’t, he’d be okay because God had a plan for him. It was a level of acceptance that stunned her. She reached across his motionless legs,


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grabbed a box of tissues and, for the first time in her 26-year career, cried in front of a patient. Having moved to high school


this year, Junior must navigate the chaos of hallways. Some students step aside, greeting him.Others, in their ownworlds, force himto steer around them. This fall, a student with his


back to Junior stepped in the wheelchair’s path. Junior’s chair struck him. The student whirled around and cursed himout. Staffmembers stepped in, and


the student was taken away. Junior didn’t like theway it all


was handled.He askedMcAuliffe whether he could speak to the other student. “I’m sorry,” Junior told the


other student in a private office. “He’s not going to be victim-


ized,” said George Pappas, head of special education at Clarks- burg. “He’s remarkable in that


way.”


Strapped for funds While Cokinos drives his po-


lice car, he is reminded of the collision when he sees kids play- ing on the side of the road. He fears they might come into traf- fic. He tries not to dwell on what happened, because doing so could interfere with his job. On a late night this June, he


spotted a Chevrolet Malibu linked to a series of armed rob- beries in the Bethesda area. He tried to pull it over, the car sped away, and Cokinos had to chase it. Speeds reached 116 mph on the Capital Beltway. “He was 100 percent calm,”


said Brown, his supervisor, an opinion confirmed by police re- cordings that captured Cokinos’s voice. “I wish I had a shift full of Jasons,” Brown adds. Earlier this year, Cokinos got


KLMNO


as close to Junior as he had since the collision. It was inside a 15th-floor conference room in downtown Rockville. Junior’s parents, financially


squeezed by expenses for their son and modifications to their home, had sued Cokinos and the county. They said their son al- ways looked both ways. The family said they let Junior walk to his friend’s house before the collision. To get there, they said, he had to cross Stringtown be- cause there was a large drainage ditch running along their side of the road. County attorneys brought Ju-


nior in for a deposition. Three times they asked him


whether he remembered the col- lision. Three times he said no. They asked himhow he typically crossed Stringtown Road. Always checked both ways, he told the lawyers, and made his


EZ SU


way to a field across the street. “It seemed like the safestway,” he said. Junior’s parents grew con-


From Page One A21 The tone of his voice picks up


cerned about the toll of the interview. But their son didn’t want water, didn’t want to take a break. Cokinos remembers how


poised he seemed. “I thought it was amazing,” he said. Government liability caps lim-


ited how much the Jovels could collect. They settled with the county for $400,000, which will be used for lawyers’ fees and expenses for their son. They say they facemanymore expenses to care for Junior. The collision has left Cokinos,


the onlywitnesswho remembers what happened, withmixed feel- ings. The child came out so fast, he said, he couldn’t avoid him. “There’s a lot of what-ifs on both sides of the fence,” he said.


when he is shown Junior’s most recent report card—four A’s and three B’s. “It speaks volumes,” Cokinos


said. “That he’s in honors geome- try, honors history.” He talks about possible ad-


vancements in medicine, about Junior possibly walking on his own one day. “Who knowswhatwill happen


in 10 years?” Cokinos said. Junior said hemisses football,


misses his independence, but tries not to dwell on it. “God is givingme patience,” he


said. “He is helping me get better.”


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