State: Teen taunts, a fatal fight

BRADENTON -- James Brier's last few months covered familiar high school territory: wanting to join a popular clique, going to a wild party and even fighting after school.

But that's where the story of an average high school kid goes horribly wrong.

Instead of coming home from a fistfight on Oct. 18 with a bloody nose or a bruised ego, James Dean Brier died at age 16.

Police said his head was repeatedly slammed on an asphalt parking lot in an after-school fight that lasted about two minutes.

Charged with murder is John Albert Acosta, 17, son of a well-known doctor who practices in Ellenton. The death has sent shock waves through Manatee High School where both teens were students. And it has left many wondering how a fight -- one without guns or knives -- could so quickly turn fatal.

"One morning he goes to school and that's just it," said Chuck Chambers, the grandfather who raised James. "It's surreal. You just can't comprehend how something like this could happen."

The incident has its roots in a drunken party at the end of August attended by more than 100 students. James wanted to become a member of an exclusive high school service club, Interact, which is sponsored by the Bradenton Rotary Club. To that end, he did something he later came to deeply regret.

He got drunk, said his grandfather. He took off his clothes and did jumping jacks. Events continued to spin out of control as partygoers urinated on him. James, a junior, was trying to show Interact members he was bold enough, crazy enough to belong to the club, which counts some of Manatee High's most popular male athletes as its members.

School officials subsequently shut down the club, finding that it had engaged in hazing rituals. But neither school officials nor police believe the party incident involving James was a hazing.

Despite his efforts to impress, James didn't get into the club. But he did get a whole lot of grief.

"They're saying, like, "Ha, ha. He did all that and he didn't get in. What a loser,' " said friend Amanda Ladd, 16, a sophomore at Manatee.

James was mortified. He talked about dropping out of school. About having his grandparents home-school him. But his grandfather counseled him to tough it out. The taunts would ease. Life would go on.

Gradually, it did. But Amanda, a friend who spent many hours with James both during and after school, said John Acosta, a junior at Manatee, knew about the incident and wouldn't let up. He picked on James and challenged him to fight, she said. It was, she said, particularly bad on the Thursday they ended up fighting after school.

"John Acosta was all that day saying stuff to James," Amanda said.

The details of who challenged whom are murky, but the place was chosen: the parking lot behind the Manatee County Board of Realtors building, a short drive from the school. Even police know it to be a traditional fighting spot for high school kids.

A crowd gathered. As investigators for both the prosecution and defense continue to interview witnesses, varying accounts have emerged on how it went down and how many people participated.

Amanda, who was not there, said friends have told her James was attacked by several boys. James' grandfather said he has heard James tried to walk away. Brett McIntosh, the Sarasota attorney for John Acosta, said he has heard versions in which James was the aggressor.

And police say this:

"The kid (James) did not resist at all. There's a reason for it, but we can't reveal it," said Bradenton police Lt. Richard Hill.

In the end, James was gravely injured. One of the teens used a cellular phone to call 911. Friends lifted James to the bed of a pickup truck and were driving him to the hospital. They had gone about 10 blocks when they flagged down a patrol car.

At the hospital

Chambers, James' grandfather, said he was at work when he got a call that James had been assaulted and was being taken to Manatee Memorial Hospital. He drove there and asked about James. The hospital said they had no James Brier, and the grandfather, a private investigator and retired police officer, went to the ambulance bay.

"I'm standing out there when the ambulance arrives. I could see through the back windows and I could see where they had the paddles, the electric paddles on James. I said, "Oh my God. This is as bad as it gets.' I could not believe the extent of the damage. They could never get a brain wave on him. I prayed to God, "Please, let me take his place.' I could not fathom what had happened to him."

Acosta was arrested that night. He is being held in a juvenile detention facility in Manatee County while prosecutors decide how to proceed. The state could charge him as an adult, or let him remain in the juvenile system. Or, as Acosta's attorney hopes, the state could decline to charge him at all.

"I think there is a question as to whether or not a crime was committed here," McIntosh said.

He said he still is talking to teens who were at the fight, but said there is evidence suggesting Acosta was acting in self-defense, that the death resulted from mutual combat or that James died accidentally.

"It never has been an extremely uncommon thing for kids to fight," McIntosh said. "This one just resulted in death."

The Acostas, McIntosh said, are disappointed and angry about how the police and the media are portraying their son. They are Cuban immigrants who came to this country with nothing, McIntosh said. The father, Jose Acosta, is a family practitioner. The Acostas live in an affluent part of town, in a house the Manatee County property appraiser values at nearly $500,000.

McIntosh said John Acosta is depressed and remorseful.

"I don't think that he ever, in his wildest dreams, thought anybody was going to be dead at the end of that fight," McIntosh said.

The family and friends of James Brier also are upset. The grandparents, as well as James' two younger brothers, cannot sleep, cannot eat. As a working class family of modest means, they worry about how the process could be affected by a well financed defense.

"I'm concerned that the money and influence and power will be enough to hire enough lawyers and expert witnesses to cloud the issues for the jury so the truth does not come out," said Chambers, James' grandfather.

Friends and family say there's another truth they hope does not get lost in the legal proceedings:

The jumping jack episode was a foolish digression in the life of a good kid.

Amanda Ladd, who shyly admits that James wanted their friendship to be more, offers a portrait of a sweet young man.

He was reassuring and calm when Amanda's 3-year-old brother cut his head. He went to the expense of having flowers delivered to her house for Valentine's Day -- the first boy who had ever done that for her. She remembers how they would dance and sing to oldies music together at the Shake Pit, a teen hangout where they both had worked.

Sometimes after dinner, they would sit in the 1978 Mercedes that James would drive when he got his driver's license.

"We'd sit in the car and he'd just start it up so I could hear the engine," said Ladd, who was freshman princess in last year's homecoming court. "He loved that car."

James' kung fu teacher, Leng Tang, said he was touched by the boy's gentle nature and helpfulness with younger students at Lee's White Leopard Kung Fu School in Bradenton.

James, he said, was a gold belt, the third of the 10 levels of proficiency. James probably could defend himself one-on-one, Tang said, but if attacked by several, he did not have the skills to fight them off. And he just wasn't the type.

"It was so hard to believe that he would even meet someone for a fight," Tang said.

The funeral for James was an emotional scene, with more than 500 people attending, many of them students at Manatee, a school of 2,200 with a tradition of powerhouse football teams.

At the school, which has stood in an old part of Bradenton for more than eight decades, there remain feelings of disbelief that something so ordinary as a fistfight could so quickly turn tragic.

"Even his friends had no idea how serious the injury was," said Manatee principal Lynda Boyer. "Maybe it's just that teenagers feel invincible."

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