Parents file suit in fatal hit-and-run
The Commercial Appeal, February 19, 2005
Written by Sherri Drake
The parents of a 12-year-old boy killed last year in a hit-and-run accident say the Memphis Police Department did a shoddy investigation of the crash.
Louis Mitchell and Betty Foster say the department cleared two police officers who should have been questioned further and didn't get answers from a man whose name was given by a Crime Stoppers tipster.
Their son, Daniel Louis Mitchell, died Feb. 18, 2004, when he was hit by two cars while crossing North Watkins.
The seventh-grader had just left basketball practice at the Ed Rice Community Center.
Thursday the parents filed a $3 million lawsuit against Markus McNeil, the officers, the Memphis Police Department, the City of Memphis, and Memphis Light, Gas and Water.
According to the lawsuit, his parents believe McNeil, of Memphis, was driving the first vehicle that hit the boy. They believe he borrowed that vehicle from officer Dressels Fox.
They say Fox and his brother, officer Patrick Fox, regularly let McNeil borrow their personal vehicles in exchange for tips about drug deals.
Last year, a tipster led police to investigate the link between the crash and the officers.
In March 2004, FBI tests concluded that two white vehicles owned by officers Dressels Fox and Patrick Fox hadn't been involved in any recent crashes.
But Jeff Rosenblum, the family's attorney, said crash experts say a big vehicle might not be damaged after hitting an 89-pound boy.
Dressels Fox owned a white Chevrolet Tahoe at the time of the crash.
Officials also discredited the tipster last year.
"We really just want anybody who knows anything to come forward with information so we can have closure with this," Foster, the boy's mother, said Friday.
The lawsuit also says MLGW and city officials didn't properly light the community center area and that city officials should have put signs near community centers urging drivers to slow down.
Spokesmen for both MLGW and MPD said they couldn't comment on pending lawsuits.
The city attorney's office couldn't be reached Friday.