Nearly 16 years after Jafar Karzoun died after a fight outside a restaurant in Storrs during Spring Weekend at the University of Connecticut, his parents will finally see the wrongful death accusations tied to his killing argued in civil court.
Jury selection in a wrongful death lawsuit, filed against UConn and others in connection with the 20-year-old’s death, is slated to begin Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court. Evidence is expected to begin being presented on March 24 and will include multiple expert witnesses testifying as to what security measures they believe could have been taken to make the unsanctioned parties that coincide with the university’s Spring Weekend safer.
Karzoun was punched once in the head near a shopping area on North Eagleville Road in the early morning hours on April 23, 2010, after a party reportedly attended by about 15,000 people at the Carriage House apartment complex near the Storrs campus was broken up.
Karzoun’s assailant, Edi Rapo of East Hartford, who was 19 at the time and not a UConn student, reportedly assaulted the 20-year-old after their friend groups clashed with each other earlier in the night and once again when they crossed paths in the early morning hours.
Karzoun fell and hit his head on the ground after being struck in the face. He suffered a broken jaw and a brain injury and died eight days later.
“The Karzouns lost their son, Jafar, 16 years ago,” said attorney Chris Mattei, who represents the family. “It should have never happened.”
“After delay upon delay, it is incomprehensible that the Attorney General’s office now wants to drag this family through a trial,” said Mattei of Bridgeport-based Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder. “But, if the state will not hold itself accountable, the Karzoun family will.”
“The death of Jafar Karzoun was a terrible and tragic loss that was deeply felt by the entire UConn community,” UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said Friday, adding that the university “does not comment on pending litigation.”
UConn is being represented in the civil matter by the Connecticut Attorney General. A spokesperson for the office said she could not comment on a pending lawsuit.
The commencement of the trial comes after Karzoun’s parents waited more than a decade for approval of a claim filed with the state Office of the Claims Commissioner seeking permission to sue a state entity. The claim was filed in April 2011 and approved in April 2022, according to court documents.
Jafar Karzoun, the UConn student who died after being punched during Spring Weekend. The photo was taken night of his death. (Hartford Courant file)
Karzoun of Milford was the oldest of four children and a junior at UConn majoring in Management Information Systems. He was among a group of friends who attended a large party at the Carriage House complex. The group was making their way back to campus after Connecticut State Police and the UConn Police Department broke up the gathering around 12:30 a.m. on the first night of Spring Weekend after altercations broke out among partygoers.
On their way back to the dorms, Karzoun’s friends became embroiled in a series of heated exchanges with a group of individuals who did not attend the university, including Rapo, who was a student at Manchester Community College, according to Courant reports.
The lawsuit alleges that some of the individuals appeared intoxicated and that police, who responded to the escalating altercations, “merely maintained an observation of the two groups despite the fact that it appeared as if a fight would re-occur.” Officers escorted the groups until they were near the UConn Police Department, according to an amended version of the civil complaint.
Once the escort had ceased, Rapo reportedly approached Karzoun in front of Señor Pepe’s restaurant and caused the injuries that would ultimately lead to his death, the lawsuit states. He was unconscious when officers responded to the area just after 1:40 a.m.
The civil complaint contends that UConn officials knew about the troubles and potential dangers arising from Spring Weekend and had been warned on multiple occasions. Before Karzoun was killed, the unsanctioned event had led to a “multitude of arrests” and EMS calls tied to underage drinking parties, the lawsuit alleges.
According to Courant reports, partygoers in 1998 began rioting in an off-campus parking lot. Ten years later, a student alleged that she was raped during the three-day weekend.
Prior to the Spring Weekend where Karzoun was killed, the lawsuit alleges that Mansfield’s town manager warned UConn and state police that, “until that point, everyone had been very fortunate that there had been no fatality occurring at Spring Weekend activities.” The town manager also reportedly warned the university that “measures needed to be taken to drastically curb the attendance at Spring Weekend events,” the lawsuit states.
“As such, UConn was on notice of an extreme problem relating to safety of its students during Spring Weekend,” the complaint contends.
The lawsuit alleges that Karzoun’s wrongful death was caused by the negligence of UConn and its police department. The complaint contends that officials failed to enforce the student conduct code dealing with underage drinking parties at Carriage House and did not take the proper steps to curb or prevent the large parties that had become synonymous with Spring Weekend.
The civil action also accuses officials of failing to prevent individuals who were not UConn students from attending the parties on and around the campus. The lawsuit argues that police could have arrested Rapo and others who were fighting before the fatal assault, and that they failed to enforce laws and ordinances dealing with public intoxication and assault.
The complaint contends that officials failed to ensure the safety of partygoers and to ensure they safely got back to their dorm or car once the large party had been broken up. It also alleges they failed to “recognize a dangerous condition and hazard involving two groups of young males that were fighting and acting aggressively towards each other.”
The lawsuit alleges that university and state police did not follow their own plan made prior to the weekend, which looked to keep partygoers safe and established a zero-tolerance policy regarding any violence.
The year after the fatal assault, UConn made changes in how it handled Spring Weekend, banning guests from the campus and encouraging students to go home, according to Courant reports.
According to court documents, attorneys representing UConn argued in filings that the university had no duty “to protect students from negligent acts that occur at unsanctioned off-campus” parties. Acknowledging that “some courts have identified a duty to protect in certain circumstances,” the state argued that “none” of them “exist in this case,” court filings said.
“Even if there was a duty of care owed to protect the decedent from the criminal acts of a third party while off-campus, the state through UConn, UConn police and the state police complied with its duty,” Assistant Attorney General Sheila J. Hall argued in a motion for summary judgment seeking to avoid a trial.
“UConn warned students to stay away from the unsanctioned events, and UConn police and state police provided significant security to protect students and others who attended both sanctioned and unsanctioned events,” Hall argued in the motion, which was later denied. “In fact, the security provided at these events was generally much more substantial than security provided at other large-scale events, including football and basketball games.”
The trial involving a state entity or agency would normally be held before a judge. In this case, the matter will be argued before a jury after the state filed an apportionment complaint which added Rapo and the entities that own Carriage House as well as the property and business where the fatal assault occurred.
If any parties are found liable, the jury could decide the damages that would be awarded. The lawsuit is seeking more than $15,000 in damages.
In September 2011, Rapo was sentenced to 4 ½ years in prison after previously pleading no contest to second-degree manslaughter. A no contest plea cannot be used as evidence of guilt in a civil matter.
At sentencing, Rapo’s attorney argued that Karzoun was intimidating him with taunts and curses, so he hit Karzoun in the jaw, Courant reports said. He also claimed Karzoun had a fragile aneurysm that made him predisposed to hemorrhaging, which could have potentially explained why he died, reports said.