Who gave booze to the dead teen driver?
The horrified parents of a drunken 17-year-old San Marino high school football player who was killed in the fiery crash of his convertible BMW have sued the man they say wrongly supplied alcohol at a party to their son.
The death car crashed at high speed into a concrete pole near the Rose Bowl in Pasadena in 2016, killing the teen.
The Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit brought by Robert and Patricia Leon against Kevin McCloskey alleges wrongful death and negligence in the death of Brendan Leon. They seek unspecified damages.
McCloskey could not be immediately reached.
Leon was a member of the San Marino High football team and had just celebrated his birthday. A witness said at the time that the car was moving at high speed south on West Drive when it crashed at Seco Street before catching fire on May 8, 2016.
The teen was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident by Pasadena Fire Department personnel. The force of the crash was so great that one of the vehicle’s wheels was found in a Rose Bowl parking lot, about 100 feet away from the wreck.
According to the Leon lawsuit filed Friday, their son given alcohol at a party before the crash by McCloskey and other unknown people listed as “Does.” The defendants allowed the teen to leave the party knowing he “was not sufficiently sober to make a rational determination as to his ability to drive a vehicle safely,” the suit states.
The Leons were dependent upon their son “for, in part, love, comfort, compassion, solace, advice and moral and financial and other support,” including the operation and maintenance of their homes, according to the lawsuit.
As a minor, the teen was incapable of exercising the care “which it is reasonable to expect of a normal sober adult operating a motor vehicle,” but the defendants let him drive away from the party anyway, the lawsuit states.
It’s not clear what Brendan’s blood alcohol concentration was when he crashed.
–City News Service