Gary families raise questions on police search in teen deaths

By Ashahed M. Muhammad
FCN Contributing Writer | Last updated: Oct 27, 2007 - 10:04:00 AM

The mother and father of Brandon Smith express their grief during Brandon�s funeral held at New Friendship Baptist Church in Gary, Ind. Sept. 24. Photo: Kenneth Muhammad/

�We have flood lights that will light up an 8-block radius; we have guys that are specialists in search patterns�I have never not responded to a rollover. We respond to fender benders just in case cars are leaking fluid or something unanticipated is happening like a battery acid leak. Those are treated like hazardous material spills! This has got to be the biggest case of incompetence that I have seen.�
�Darren Smith, uncle of Brandon Smith

GARY, Ind. (FinalCall.com) - At about 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 15, a 1994 Chevrolet Caprice driven by 17-year old Darius Moore flew over a median and crashed into a guardrail rolling down into a ditch. None of the four occupants of the vehicle were wearing seat belts. All four were ejected from the car two suffered severe injuries, two died at the scene.

Audio recordings released by the Gary Police Department show that responding officers had been informed that there were two passengers missing and unaccounted for, however, police failed to locate the two other passengers that were unaccounted for. Approximately six hours later and long after police officers had left the scene, a family member unexpectedly discovered the dead bodies of the two missing teens—Brandon Smith and Dominique Green, both 18 years old—”less than 20 feet” from the scene of the crash.

Arthur Smith, the father of Brandon, said that he heard about the terrible car accident from the mother of one of the two surviving teens. Even though he had not heard about his son, he wasn’t really thinking that his son was dead. He just wanted to go to the crash site to see what happened.

“When I walked to where it looked as if the car had stopped, as I got ready to turn around, I glanced and saw something blue out the corner of my eye, and I really couldn’t make it out,” Mr. Smith said. At that time, he was still fully expecting Brandon to call his cell phone any minute, letting him know that he stayed the night at a friend’s house, which his son did often after nights out with friends.

“I saw a shoe, and then another shoe, I turned and stepped on something and when I looked up I saw my son laying there. A few feet away from him, I could see the back of Dominique,” said Mr. Smith. “If the police had looked, they would have found those kids. They didn’t look for those boys! They did not care to look for them.”

None of the teens have been charged or cited with wrongdoing and none of the police officers have been reprimanded. Gary police have initiated an internal investigation and the Lake County Sheriff’s office is reviewing the accident report and related circumstances.

Without finding Brandon or Dominique, police reports reflect that the vehicle was towed at about 3:45 a.m. Police reportedly said they stayed at the scene for two hours in a search, however, family members of the two dead teens charge the Gary Police Department with negligence.

Brandon Smith’s uncle Darren Smith, who is a 20-year veteran of the Gary, Indiana Fire Department and an emergency medical technician, is convinced that his nephew might still be alive if the municipal authorities had followed proper procedures.

“We have flood lights that will light up an 8 block radius, we have guys that are specialists in search patterns, I have never not responded to a rollover. We respond to fender benders just in case cars are leaking fluid or something unanticipated is happening like a battery acid leak. Those are treated like hazardous material spills! This has got to be the biggest case of incompetence that I have seen,” said Darren Smith.

When the initial call was made for ambulances, Gary Fire Department dispatchers may not have been aware that a serious crash had occurred, nor that there may have been victims unaccounted for.

Fire Chief Jeff Ward told the Chicago Sun Times that he was told the incident was identified to dispatchers only as an “unknown injury” and that an ambulance wasn’t called to the actual crash scene.

The official report from the Lake County Indiana coroner’s office said that the boys died instantly and that report was quickly endorsed by Gary Police Chief Thomas Houston in his immediate defense of the officers. The families are still waiting on their own independent autopsy results to identify the cause and time of death.

“If two survived, why couldn’t all four have survived?” Darren Smith asked.

The Final Call made several attempts to contact GPD Chief Thomas Houston, however, we were directed to Cmdr. Samuel Roberts, a spokesperson for the department. Cmdr. Roberts did not return any of the several calls made to his office.

***

‘Not drunk, nor speeding’

Seventeen-year-old Darius Moore, the driver of the 1994 Caprice involved in the rollover crash, said he had a blowout as he traveled around a curve causing him to lose control of the vehicle. He flatly denied that he had been driving under the influence of alcohol, and said he was not speeding.

“I climbed up the ravine, got my friend [DeAndre Anderson] out and then went walking down the block knocking on doors and flagging down cars trying to get help,” the Gary West High School student told The Final Call.

Mr. Moore who said he encountered an officer who arrived at scene a few minutes after the crash. “I told him I had an accident and I had two friends that were still out there who needed medical assistance. I was losing a lot blood.” In audio recordings of an exchange between Gary police officers, it is clear that those arriving at the scene were told of two other passengers unaccounted for. A portion of the exchange showed that officers acknowledged that the severity of the crash made it unlikely that the two passengers that were unaccounted for could have walked away from it.

In the recorded exchange between Gary Police officers at the scene, released by the Gary Police department, one officer stated: “He says he had two other guys with him, they might still be in the car. You might want to check,” while another officer responded, “Yeah, I’m headed there right now.”

In another recorded exchange, an officer said, “If you’ve seen the vehicle, I don’t know how anyone would have walked off.”

Darius’s mother Carmelita Evans said her son could not have had the presence of mind to do all that he did if he was drunk.

“I find it hard to believe that he could have done all of that if he was so intoxicated, and I am pretty sure the police would have arrested him by now. No police have visited me or anything. They [Gary police] just put that out there in the news, but no charges have been brought forth against my son,” said Ms. Evans.

In a strange twist, Ms. Evans visited the Gary Police Department on Friday, Sept. 28, to obtain a copy of the police report from the accident. Administrators there refused to give her on and referred her to Cmdr. Samuel Roberts, a spokesman for the Gary police department.

Ms. Evans said it was unusual that two weeks after the incident she still could not get access to the official police report of the accident, which is considered public information. Ms. Evans said she has placed several calls to the office of Cmdr. Roberts and has not received a reply.

Darius said he will miss his friends, and wonders if his friends had been treated at the scene in a timely manner, if they would have survived.

“All the time I think about them, they were my best friends. I was with them every day; I never missed a day without seeing them or talking to them,” he said. “I believe they stayed out there a little too long. If I would have stayed out there as long as them, I wouldn’t have made it either,” said Darius.

The Final Call