Grieving soldier wants answers in son’s death
12-year-old took fatal fall during school parade
By Kelly Kennedy
Times staff writer
Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Long visited his 12-year-old son’s gravestone in Kentucky for the first time in March.
“I just lay there on the grave and cried,” Long said. “That’s all I could do.”
Maurice Long died Oct. 19 when he hit his head on a curb during a Heidelberg High School homecoming parade in Germany. His father said Maurice had been holding on to the side of a truck while riding a foot-propelled scooter. The truck sped up and turned right, and Maurice lost his hold and fell.
“My wife and 5-year-old daughter just watched our son bleed to death,” Long said. “This has been devastating to my family.”
Richard Keesee, 35, the driver of the truck, has been charged with death through negligence in district court, according to the Office of Public Prosecution in Heidelberg. Keesee is married to a U.S. service member. If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison.
Jürgen Gremmelmaier, spokes- man for the Heidelberg Office of Public Prosecution, said German courts are handling the case because Keesee is a civilian.
Long said he wants someone to take responsibility for the lack of traffic control at the parade. According to Long and several witnesses, traffic flowed both ways as the parade proceeded through the dusk-darkened military housing area. At intersections, traffic continued despite the parade.
And, Long said, children chased candy tossed from moving vehicles. Several American cities have banned tossing candy during parades or have required that it be passed out by people on foot because there have been many accidents caused by children chasing candy during parades. No medical personnel stood by in case of an accident, Long said.
“This parade was a danger when it first took off,” he said. “It took 20 minutes for an ambulance to get there.”
But Long, a food services adviser with V Corps Headquarters, said no one has answered his questions: Did the school request traffic control? Did base officials refuse to grant that request?
“Everybody’s pointing their finger at everybody else,” he said.
Dennis Bohannon, spokesman for the Office of the Director of Department of Defense Dependents Schools-Europe, said Doris Brodie, assistant principal at Heidelberg High School, requested military police support in a letter she wrote Sept. 27.
“The request praised the military police’s past support and requested their services to include blocking roads along the parade route,” Bohannon said. “On October 18, 2005, a day before the event, a military police patrol stopped by Heidelberg High School to verify the time and location of the homecoming parade.”
Bohannon said Brodie gave the police a typed document listing the homecoming events and she requested a firetruck be part of the parade. She also asked for parent volunteers to work along the parade route.
“Unfortunately, military traffic and crowd control were not in place before the parade was allowed to begin,” Bohannon said.
“The request for MP support was to block roads along the parade route,” said Kim Waltz, chief of public affairs for the Installation Management Agency –Europe.
“It would not have prevented the accident, as the MPs would not have been in the area where the accident occurred. The presence or nonpresence of the MPs did not contribute to the accident.
“Officials are taking measures to increase safety procedures for future community events,” she added.
Witness accounts
Geanna Torres also watched the parade after happening upon it on a trip home from the commissary.
“I believe a light needs to be shone on the whole situation,” she said. In her statement to the Criminal Investigations Command, Torres wrote, “I witnessed the parade from start to finish and did not see any MP presence either in vehicles or walking with the parade. Also, there would have been nothing and no one [to keep me] from driving past or crossing the path of the parade. From my running vehicle, I was within six feet of the participants in the parade.”
Another witness, Nicole Gwynn, also wrote a statement: “I saw one red convertible with six kids in it. … They were throwing candy from the opposite side of the street, meaning the candy was thrown before oncoming traffic and after traffic would pass by. I saw kids running in the street, running to the cars [and] touching the vehicles as they passed.”
She continued: “In the event, a vibrant young man lost his life because of a clear lack of judgment and poor planning. … This was preventable, and they still let it go on.”
Rep. Edward Whitfield, R-Ky., has requested an inquiry into the case, and the Pentagon sent him a letter saying the inquiry had been initiated as of Feb. 28.
Bohannon said schools have made safety requirements more stringent since the accident.
The safety procedures must now be verified by the school’s principal before any event, and that principal must identify and address any potential safety hazards — as well as coordinate military support if it is necessary, Bohannon said.
Long attended a Christmas parade Dec. 10 because, he said, he wanted to make sure proper precautions had been taken to prevent the death of another child. In that parade, he said, military police provided traffic control and walked up and down the length of the parade.
“You should have seen all the security,” he said. “They did their job on the 10th, but they didn’t on 19 October.”
He said he wants to see the case investigated by the military, in addition to the charges brought against the driver by the German police.
“I would like to see the people who get paid to protect us on this base held responsible for why they failed to do their jobs,” Long said. “I promised my child I was going to speak for him.”