A young man's family members say a rescue worker treated them harshly and that they weren't allowed to help.
By STEVE THOMPSON
Published May 21, 2003
You don't need a map to tell where Dade City ends and Lacoochee begins, locals say. If something good happens, people refer to the area as Dade City. If something bad happens, people call it Lacoochee.
On May 10, something bad happened.
A young man died in a car chase with a Pasco sheriff's deputy. A disturbance followed. And now two Pasco County Fire Rescue workers are under investigation. The Sheriff's Office and the Florida Highway Patrol also are conducting routine investigations of their responses, sheriff's spokesman Jon Powers said.
Witnesses accuse deputies and rescuers of doing too little to aid the fatally wounded driver. The young man's family members say that a rescue worker treated them harshly and that they were barred from offering help.
Sheriff's officials and at least one rescuer deny the allegations.
"The entire incident that we're involved in is being investigated," said Chris Alland, assistant chief for Pasco Fire Rescue.
Alland confirmed Tuesday that rescue workers Lance Bartlett and Mark Lamanna are under investigation in connection with their response to the fatal crash of Michael Anthony Reed on Pine Products Road 10 days earlier. Rescue officials would not reveal any specifics about the investigation.
Reed's aunt, Sylvia Coleman, told the St. Petersburg Times last week that rescue workers shouted profanities and made an obscene gesture toward her.
The scene of the crash had turned tense as 75 to 100 people yelled threats, profanity, and racial insults at deputies, according to the Sheriff's Office. Reed crashed where Pine Products Road meets Chap Road, near where two Lacoochee neighborhoods come together. On one side sit government housing projects lived in mostly by black people. On the other are streets lined with modest, sometimes rundown houses lived in mostly by white people.
One feeling that both sides seem to share is a general mistrust of police. Some in Lacoochee think police are as likely to harass as to protect.
By all accounts, Michael Anthony Reed, who was black, was well-liked on both sides of Lacoochee. He died after he had tried to outrun a sheriff's deputy who was pursuing him because his license tag didn't match the car he was driving, the Sheriff's Office said.
It was not Reed's first run-in with the law. Records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement show Reed was arrested at least eight times since 1994 on charges ranging from vehicle theft to burglary to cocaine possession with intent to sell. In 1996, when he was 17, he was one of two men who took part in the early morning robbery of R & J Foods that left three people hospitalized with gunshot wounds. A judge sentenced him to 41/2 years in prison for his role in the crime.
With lights flashing and a siren blaring behind him, Reed swerved at a curve in Pine Products Road and slammed into a tree. The sound could be heard through the nearby streets, and word of what had caused it spread quickly.
It was only minutes later when sheriff's Deputy John Ardolino, Reed's pursuer, who is white, found himself surrounded by a crowd of people, white and black, from nearby neighborhoods.
"He was the only cop there, and he was scared," said David Davenport, who is white and was one of the first residents at the scene.
Here's Ardolino's report of what happened:
Reed had been hurled through the front windshield of his white Chevrolet and was hanging off the car's hood. His left ankle was hooked on the car's antenna. Ardolino put a handcuff on Reed's left hand. After checking Reed for breathing and pulse and finding none, Ardolino began giving Reed chest compressions. After several compressions, Reed began trying to breathe.
Ardolino checked again for a pulse and found one. He unhooked Reed's leg and laid him on the ground beside the car.
"I then heard Mr. Reed's breathing become labored," Ardolino's report said. "His teeth were tightly clenched together, and he was sucking air through his teeth."
Ardolino pried Reed's mouth open and tilted his head so that fluid could drain from his mouth.
"He then continued to breathe while I held his mouth open," Ardolino wrote.
The crash happened at 6:22 p.m. Ardolino arrived at the scene one minute later, and the chief of Tri-Community Volunteer Fire, Mike Morgan, arrived at 6:27 p.m., according to sheriff's spokesman Powers.
Ardolino reported that when fire rescue arrived, he briefed an unspecified paramedic on Reed's condition.
"He took over administering aid," Ardolino wrote.
While Ardolino did not specify which fire rescue service he had turned the scene over to, Powers said that Ardolino had turned Reed's care over to Tri-Community Volunteer Fire.
"I then assisted in securing the crime scene while fire rescue personnel worked on Mr. Reed," Ardolino wrote.
But some witnesses told a different story. They say the chief of Tri-Community Volunteer Fire showed up alone in a blue pickup truck and did not care for Reed.
The chief just stood there, Davenport said. William Ramer, another witness who was interviewed separately, agreed.
"He stood and watched," Ramer said.
Reed lay unattended for 10 to 15 minutes until an ambulance arrived, Ramer said. As more sheriff's deputies arrived, they concentrated on photographing the scene and sectioning off the area with police tape, Ramer said.
Morgan said he did take over Reed's care from Ardolino and maintained Reed's airway until the ambulance arrived.
"I was kneeling down, I had rubber gloves on, and I never left his head until the paramedic arrived," said Morgan, who is an emergency medical technician.
He said that one of the sheriff's deputies had a camera and seemed to be taking pictures of the scene while he was tending to Reed.
Meanwhile, members of Reed's family were arriving. Coleman, Reed's aunt, said that when she came, no one was aiding Reed.
When she tried to go to him, deputies prevented her, she said.
The crowd that was gathering grew increasingly hostile toward the law officers who were arriving.
Family members said the tension was not about race but about what they perceived as a lack of concern by police and rescuers. Ramer agreed.
"They were just venting and walking around," Ramer said of the family members.
He said Reed's family acted no differently than he would have expected anyone to act under the circumstances.
Of the deputies he said, "They just had that tough-guy attitude."
Ramer didn't find it hard to see why the family grew frustrated as deputies prevented them from approaching Reed.
Ardolino did not know who Reed was as he pursued him, sheriff's spokesman Powers said. But some of Reed's family members recognized Ardolino.
They knew him as the deputy who recently had visited the home of Reed's cousin, Mable Singleton, to apologize for confiscating her cigarettes and an open beer.
On April 3, Ardolino took Singleton's cigarettes and beer, thinking she was under age, according to an internal report. He did not check her identification. Singleton, 23, had been talking with friends around a barrel fire that serves as a neighborhood gathering place off Pine Products Road.
After Singleton called about the incident, Ardolino's supervisors had him bring her a new pack of cigarettes and apologize. Family members said this experience with Ardolino contributed to the tension at the scene of Reed's death.
Ardolino, 29, was hired as a deputy on Sept. 26, 2000. He has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from the University of Florida.
In November, a supervisor described Ardolino during an evaluation as "a young, aggressive deputy" and said he needed to work on his temperament in high-stress situations.
Estimates differ on how long it took the ambulance to arrive. Ramer estimated it took 20 minutes. Other witnesses, including Davenport, estimated it took longer.
Pasco County Assistant Fire Chief Alland said the call for an ambulance came at 6:22 p.m. Paramedics from a county station in Dade City arrived 13 minutes later, at 6:35 p.m., he said.
As investigations continue, one reminder of that evening is gone. The tree that Reed's car struck has been replaced by a freshly hacked stump.
- Staff writer Cary Davis contributed to this report.
