Year later, few answers in Norfolk trash-truck death

NORFOLK

One year after longtime sanitation worker Jerry Holton was crushed to death in the back of a city trash truck, officials say they probably will never know who was responsible for rendering inoperable two safety systems that might have saved his life.

At 7 a.m. today, sanitation workers and Holton’s family, will quietly mark the anniversary by placing a plaque above the daily muster board at the city’s Norfolk Industrial Park facility. It says simply: “In memory of Jerry Holton.”

City officials acknowledge that had safety systems in the truck worked, Holton probably would be alive. They say they do not know who rewired the truck to bypass the safety systems. In a state investigation, officials said they, too, were unable to determine who rewired the truck. No further investigation is planned.

City safety officer Craig Watkins, who has led the city’s investigation, said this week that he has run into a dead end. “Short of somebody jumping out and confessing, there’s no way of determining who did it,” he said.

The day he died, Holton pressed a button that should have engaged two safety systems designed to shut down the truck’s hydraulic system. He then climbed into the back of the truck to clear trash blocking the compaction system. The system was still running and crushed him.

The truck was one of nine the city purchased from the Southeastern Public Service Authority in the summer of 2010. City officials have said they think SPSA, the regional trash agency, is responsible for rewiring the truck.

SPSA officials have steadfastly denied they did so.

John Keifer, the city’s director of public works, said this week that “we see no evidence” that the city rewired the truck.

City officials say buying used trucks from SPSA was a mistake. The trucks have broken down and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs, according to city documents. Watkins said that if the city purchased a used truck again, it would do so from a private company that refurbishes them and ensures they are brought back to industry standards.

Today, the truck where Holton died sits in a warehouse. It hasn’t been used since he died.

Holton’s death has ushered in major change in the city’s waste management department. City Manager Marcus Jones, who took over days before the accident, immediately replaced most of the senior managers in waste management, naming Harvey E. Howard as the superintendent and A.J. Anderson as the safety officer.

Howard, a Marine veteran with experience in public and private sector waste management, said morale was lousy when he arrived. Employees “needed to be re-educated” on the value of safety training, he said, and were eager to do so after losing a fellow employee.

“Our training is so much better,” truck driver Alan Van Alstyne said. “So is morale. You’ve got to know what you’re doing before they’ll let you leave here with a truck.”

Training is done on a daily basis, drivers said, and they must run through a daily checklist to ensure all systems on their trucks are working. Anderson often drives around the city to watch drivers and make sure they obey safety rules.

On Feb. 3, 2011, the morning Holton died, he had been asked to drive a Heil truck that he was not trained on. He was unfamiliar with the truck’s compaction system, according to the state investigation.

He might have been in a hurry on the Wards Corner route, city officials speculate. Instead of turning off the truck and pulling keys out of the ignition, as industry standards and city policy called for, he left the truck running and pressed the button designed to engage the two safety systems.

Truck driver Alfred James-Parson, who was close to co-worker Holton, said leaving the truck running could save a driver as much as 15 minutes.

“To be perfectly honest, some of us here tried the same move as Jerry,” he said.

A few days after Holton’s death, Watkins said city officials isolated the truck and diagnosed the problem. They hired experts, and they reported that the rewiring was clumsy, as though someone was rigging the truck to work, according to Watkins.

Watkins said the materials used left no clues as to who rewired the truck, but city officials believe it was SPSA or a contractor hired by the agency. They point to documents that show the truck was sent out for maintenance in 2007.

City officials also contend that SPSA tossed out maintenance records for the trucks in violation of state law, which requires that some records be maintained for three years. State investigators said that without the maintenance records, there is no way to determine who rewired the trucks. SPSA Executive Director Rowland “Bucky” Taylor denied that SPSA or any contractor hired by SPSA rewired the trucks.

As for keeping the records for three years, Taylor said in an email that state law requires agencies to keep maintenance records of a truck “until disposal of vehicle.” He wrote that once the truck was sold to Norfolk, the truck was disposed of.

State officials said that regardless of who tampered with the safety systems, it was the city’s job to ensure trucks were properly maintained. The state cited the city for 19 safety violations. If the city had been a private agency, it might have been fined as much as $87,000, documents indicate.

“Once the city purchased the truck, it was their responsibility to properly maintain it,” Jennifer Wester, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry, said in an email.

Holton’s family says that for much of the past year, they’ve been in the dark. In the months immediately after Holton’s death, city officials stayed in close contact, but that ended as details of the accident became public, the family said.

“After they started pointing fingers at each other, the contact virtually stopped,” said Jessica Hendricks, Holton’s daughter.

Hendricks said the family has consulted with an attorney but has not decided whether to take legal action against the city. The possibility of a lawsuit, Keifer said, might be partially behind the city’s silence.

Family members say they had to learn about the safety violations, the poor condition of the trucks and the rewiring of Holton’s truck from news reports. Holton’s wife, Nena, declined to be interviewed. Her daughter Marie Ramos said she is still too devastated.

But she issued a statement saying the family is teaching Holton’s four grandchildren “to reflect his self-sacrificing spirit so that they can grow up with a little piece of their grandfather.”

Watkins said he hopes one day to be able to tell the family who was responsible for rewiring the truck. “I hope that someone’s conscience gets the better of them,” he said.

Ramos said she doesn’t expect that to happen.

“Whoever did it knows who they are and wouldn’t have recorded it,” she said. “They know who they are. They will feel guilty for the rest of their lives, and for me that’s enough.”

Harry Minium, 757-446-2371, harry.minium@pilotonline.com