Failing Max Gilpin: Berman Responds

I need to do some catching up on the Max Gilpin story from late last week. C-J's Toni Konz has been plugging away with some solid reporting on on this troublesome case.

Superintendent Shelly Berman added some light to the murky events surrounding the death of Max Gilpin. He provides some missing particulars that go some distance toward disputing claims that the district was unmoved by the tragic events at PRP.


First...

More PRP staff may be added to lawsuit

The parents of a 15-year-old Pleasure Ridge Park football player who collapsed at a practice and later died are trying to add the high school's principal, athletic director and an assistant coach to their lawsuit against six other coaches.

Through their attorneys, Glenna Michele Crockett and Jeffrey Dean Gilpin filed an amended complaint yesterday in Jefferson Circuit Court, asking Judge Mitch Perry to add principal David Johnson, athletic director Craig Webb and assistant coach Josh Ligthle as defendants in their lawsuit against head coach Jason Stinson and five other assistant coaches.

Crockett and Gilpin contend that Johnson, Webb and Ligthle were just as negligent in the death of their son, Max Gilpin, as the coaches they previously named in the lawsuit...

In an interview with C-J, JCPS Superintendent Sheldon Berman confessed some concern over PRP Principal David Johnson's deletion of several emails which provided eye-witnesses to the football practice in question. But he also said,

the district has found nothing so far in its investigation that would warrant taking any action now against Johnson or any of the coaches. But he said the investigation is continuing and it was too soon to say whether anyone would be disciplined in Max's death.

In an hour-long interview with Toni Konz, Berman defended JCPS officials saying they began investigating immediately.

I really want to believe this, mostly because I can't imagine that JCPS would NOT have conducted an intense investigation.

But it remains troublesome to ponder how the district could have been investigating while the principal had no sense of it whatsoever. Indeed, Berman seems to consider Johnson's chat with head coach Stinson the centerpiece of the investigation. He describes it as a three-hour conversation. But Johnson testified that his only conversation with head football coach Jason Stinson about the practice was a brief conversation where he "entrusted that [Stinson] told me the truth."

Berman: JCPS began Gilpin investigation quickly

Superintendent Sheldon Berman said Pleasure Ridge Park and Jefferson County public school officials began investigating the Max Gilpin case less than two days after the 15-year-old football player collapsed at practice from heat stroke last August.

“We have been on top of this from the very beginning... We took this very seriously.”

Berman also said that witness accounts accusing PRP’s head coach, Jason Stinson, and his assistants of denying players water and running them excessively on a day when the heat index reached 94 were contradicted by interviews that a district investigator conducted with students and coaches who were at the field that day...

Berman complained about media reports,

that “have given the impression that we have not been thorough in our investigation,” which he said “could not be further from the truth.”

“We see this as a very serious investigation, and we are not treating this lightly,” Berman said. “We want to ensure that well into the future we do everything possible to prevent anything like this from happening again.”

That's the right answer.

It does not help that PRP Johnson can't seem to get his story straight. I'm wondering how JCPS could conduct a thorough investigation, and the principal not be aware of it. Johnson's own statement shows that he was unaware of any investigation going on when he said that "he expected an investigation would occur."

Johnson should have been able to tell C-J, 'Yes, there's an on-going investigation being headed up by so-n-so....and I can't comment until the facts are in.' But he did nothing to inspire confidence, and even undermined his superintendent's effort to help him out.

...Todd Thompson, the lawyer for Max’s mother, Michele Crockett, said depositions from PRP and district officials show their initial investigation was slipshod, and they shouldn’t have declared just two days after the practice that there were no policy violations.

“What they should have done, on Friday, rather than tell the public that everything was done to protocol, they should have said they didn’t know what happened,” Thompson said.

A Jefferson County grand jury found enough information to indict Stinson on a criminal charge of reckless homicide in Max's death. Stinson has pleaded not guilty.

The Timeline

Toni lists the following from the coach's account:

• During the Aug. 20, practice, senior Antonio Calloway was overcome by the heat and collapsed.
• 15 minutes later, Max collapsed between 6:10 and 6:15 p.m.
• An EMS report shows the ambulance was called at 6:18 p.m. and arrived at 6:27, then went to Kosair Children's Hospital.
• Webb, PRP's athletic director, who was at the practice, didn't notify Johnson until around noon Thursday, Aug. 21.
• Johnson chastised Webb for failing to notify him sooner, then began an initial assessment of what took place, Berman said.
• Johnson notified Joe Burks, the assistant superintendent of high schools, who told Berman about the incident that afternoon.
• Berman said Burks instructed Jerry Wyman, the district's director of athletics, to go to PRP and "assess the situation to see if the (Kentucky High School Athletic Association) rules and procedures were followed."
• Wyman went to the school to collect documentation on heat-index readings taken at the practice site and the medical paperwork that allowed Max to participate in sports.
• Berman said Johnson had a three-hour discussion with Stinson at the hospital on the morning of Friday, Aug. 22, where the two went over details of the practice, including water breaks.
• "(Johnson) tells Stinson to write down the order of things that happened at practice," Berman said. "Stinson writes it down, and that gets faxed to us from the hospital." Berman said Johnson also talked with Webb.
• At that point, Berman said, Max was still alive and officials were hopeful he would recover.
• And by Friday's end, the district's initial assessment was that "nothing suspicious had happened." "Keep in mind, we had not heard any complaints, at least none that we knew about," Berman said.
• At 6:28 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, Max was pronounced dead.
• Aug. 25 - Berman said, Burks briefed his administrative cabinet about Max and the “situation at PRP.” "That puts us in a very different situation," Berman said. "We decided we needed to do a full investigation of this..."
• Aug 25 - Berman dispatches Burks to PRP and he met with Stinson, Webb and Brian Shumate, the district's high school liaison.
• Aug 25 -Berman decides to delay a full investigation until after Max's funeral. The investigation is headed by Stan Mullen, the district's director of security. Johnson was told the investigation would now be handled by the district.
• Aug 27 - C-J published witness accounts of practice accusing coaches of denying players water and running them until someone quits.
• Aug 27 (morning) - Mullen calls Louisville Metro Police and is told they have not planned to do a death investigation.
• Aug 27 - (afternoon) Police inform JCPS they will be investigating. JCPS discloses the police investigation.
• The police allow JCPS officials to shadow police investigators in a joint investigation and began interviewing players Friday, Aug. 29.
• Sept. 4 - police discontinue JCPS involvement in joint investigation.
• Sept. 11 - There is some negotiation that goes back and forth, and eventually JCPS receives permission to interview witnesses after LMPD has done their interviews.
• Sept. 12 to 24, JCPS interviewed 91 football players.
• On Sept. 24-25, JCPS interviewed other coaches, Webb and other witnesses.
• Oct 9 - JCPS sends an open records request to police for a copy of their complete investigative file. That request was denied on Oct. 22.
• Oct. 17 - JCPS interview with Stinson canceled by his defense attorney.
• Nov. 5 - JCPS interviews scheduled with Max's parents, were canceled by their attorneys."

Attorney Todd Thompson disputes the coach's timeline, saying,

"I find it unconvincing that the principal did not even speak to the assistant coaches. And, if he did in fact have a three-hour conversation with Stinson, he did not tell us that under oath"..."I also find it troubling that the principal did not take any notes during this interview, or if he did take notes, he didn't keep them."

Me too, right up until the moment the investigation started being handled by district personnel, after which, it makes much more sense. But any way you cut it - Johnson's obtuse testimony failed his district, his superintendent, and the school he loves by his dismissive mishandling of such a tragic event. He failed Max Gilpin.

C-J opines,

...this week Superintendent Sheldon Berman responded to Courier-Journal news coverage and editorial criticism by saying JCPS had been on top of the investigation "from the very beginning" and that "I wouldn't change a thing" about how the district has handled the inquiry.

We suggest the superintendent revisit the recent, sworn deposition of PRP principal David Johnson, which contradicts Mr. Berman's rosier description and is replete with, among other disturbing testimony, don't-recalls, don't-remembers and admissions of deleted e-mails from critical sources.

Meanwhile,

House Bill 383, sponsored by Shively Democratic Rep. Joni Jenkins, deserves passage.

It would impose a statewide standard of requiring ice pools at every athletic activity when the outside temperature is 94 degrees or more. The bill also would require that coaches be trained on automated external defibrillators, which treat cardiac arrest, and that the devices be present at practices and games.

Experts say studies of hundreds of heat stroke victims show all survive if they are immediately treated with cold water, lowering the body's temperature to 104 degrees in about 20 minutes. Gilpin's temperature reached 107 degrees.

Pass the bill.