*** Richland boy on minibike killed by truck ***

Richland, Washington -- 06/08/2004
An 10-year-old boy died Saturday afternoon when the minibike
he was riding shot onto busy Van Giesen Street in West Richland
and into the path of a truck.

Witnesses said emergency workers scooped up Jordan Davis
of West Richland when they arrived and rushed him to Kadlec
Medical Center in Richland, but he could not be saved.

Jordan was a fourth-grader at Tapteal Elementary School in
West Richland. His parents were identified by neighbors as
Michelle and Ray Davis.

Their next-door neighbor, Joshua Schneider, 23, had given
Jordan permission to borrow the motorized minibike. Schneider
told Jordan he could ride the bike until it ran out of gas, said
Schneider's parents, Keith and Patty Miland, who also live nearby.

"He rode it so many times," Schneider said. They'd established a
boundary marked by telephone poles behind Ty's Bar and Grill
on Van Giesen and well way from the street that Jordan was not
allowed to cross on the bike, Schneider said.

Witnesses told of seeing Jordan either stopped on the sidewalk
or driving very slowly onto the sidewalk just up the street from
his home at the corner of 38th and Van Giesen streets.

Then "He jumped right over the curb into the path of the truck,
within six feet of it," said David Nye of Benton City, who was
driving behind the truck that hit Jordan.

Police did not know if Jordan was trying to cross Van Giesen
midblock or lost control of the minibike on the sidewalk and
rode onto the street. Investigators will be checking to see if the
bike's throttle might have gotten stuck or it otherwise malfunctioned.

He was hit just before 3 p.m. by a flatbed truck pulling a trailer
with a backhoe. It was driven by Harlan McMullen and owned by
C & M Landscaping Garden Center & Nursery of West Richland,
said Mark Panther, the West Richland police chief. Another nursery
employee was a passenger in the truck, police said.

The child was dragged a short way down the road and the driver
yanked the orange minibike, which stood about two feet off the
ground, from under the truck, according to witnesses.

The noise of the crash drew neighbors from
their homes and people out of Ty's.

Ray Davis, who had seen Jordan riding the minibike, left home
shortly before the accident, Schneider said. The boy's mother
was inside the house.

"We really feel for the family right now," Panther said as investigators

began marking the accident scene where two small black and gray
athletic shoes lay in the road behind the truck.

A West Richland technical-accident investigator and two accident
investigators from the Benton County Sheriff's Office were analyzing
the scene Saturday afternoon. A commercial vehicle investigator from
the Washington State Patrol was en route to check the brakes on the
truck and do other mechanical tests.

The speed limit on Van Giesen, a state highway
through West Richland, is 30 miles per hour.

By late afternoon, Tapteal's interim principal Hershel Griggs and
a secretary were calling teachers and staff to tell them about the
tragedy.

Griggs will meet at the school today with a teacher, a secretary,
a counselor and an assistant superintendent, said Richland School
District spokesman Steve Aagaard. They will compose a letter to
send home with Tapteal students Monday.

Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
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