A Brandon High School student was struck and killed Monday morning in front of the high school. KATHY MOORE/The Tampa Tribune

By LIZ BLEAU and SUSAN M. GREEN
The Tampa Tribune

Video: Brandon High Student Killed | Comment: Should there be a crosswalk?

BRANDON - Brandon High School awaits upgraded safety markings and signs to make students safer as they dodge cars, trucks and minivans trying to get to and from school.

This morning before school, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s deputy Deputy C. Fluellen stopped traffic at the crosswalk located on Victoria and Meade streets.

Flashing lights, neon-green school crossing signs and a 20-mph speed limit during busy morning and afternoon rushes will warn drivers to be extra careful.

But that won’t help the family of 15-year-old Camden Allen White. White was struck and killed by a car Monday morning as he negotiated a crosswalk in front of Brandon High.

White stripes mark the crosswalk on Victoria Street at Meade Road. But no flashing lights alert motorists to beware of the many students walking along Victoria Street, and the speed limit is 35 mph.

“This accident should not have happened,” Francis Bragg, White’s uncle, said Monday outside the school.

“I know it’s a high school, but it should be no different from other schools,” Bragg said. “A 15 mph limit would have made a lot of difference.”

The accident brought disruption and trauma to a typically routine time of day for Brandon High students, parents and staff members. Students navigated the long lines of traffic, which was diverted around the accident scene, only to be confronted with the loss of a classmate.

“All of our students who witnessed the accident are traumatized by what they saw,” said Pat Canavan, a longtime school psychologist and member of the school district’s crisis team.

Canavan said the sheriff’s office interviewed five students as potential witnesses.

As White crossed Victoria Street at Meade Road, cars traveling west on Victoria stopped to allow him to cross, Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spokesman J.D. Callaway said. An Oldsmobile Alero being driven east on Victoria by Kami Bell, 22, of Valrico, hit White as he walked into the eastbound lane, Callaway said.

The impact threw White onto the windshield of a GMC Jimmy driven by Carmen Freytis, 50, of Brandon, who was driving west and had stopped to let White cross.

No charges have been filed in the accident, which remains under investigation. White’s mother, Michelle Bragg, said her son had been attending Brandon High School for a month. He had transferred from Tampa Bay Academy, a private school in Riverview that offers residential and day programs for children needing psychiatric care.

She said her son was struggling with attention deficit and bipolar disorders.

“He was a very good boy,” Michelle Bragg said. “I know mothers always say that, but he really was.”

Gary Tate, head of bicycle and pedestrian safety for Hillsborough County, said three years ago the county established a policy for all public and private schools requiring standardized school safety zones. Those include flashing lights and 15 or 20 mph speed limits when schools open and close.

The first phase of the improvement program is finished. Brandon High School is awaiting the second phase, Tate said.

He said people have complained about traffic around Brandon High School, many requesting a three-way stop at Victoria and Meade. Only drivers going south on Meade Road are now required to stop.

In the past two years, 11 crashes were reported at that intersection, sheriff’s office statistics show. Seven happened between Dec. 1, 2004, and Dec. 1, 2005. From Dec. 1, 2005, to Dec. 1, 2006, four crashes were reported.

When Michelle Bragg saw a TV news report about the crash shortly after her son left their home on Telfair Road, she feared the worst.

“I freaked out and put my daughter in the car and rushed to the school,” she said. “I just had a feeling it was him.”

Canavan was one of the school psychologists who met with students and staff Monday at Brandon High. A member of the district’s crisis team for 20 years, he usually dreads Sunday mornings. That’s when he sometimes gets word of weekend deaths and gets dispatched to a school first thing Monday.

Getting the call Monday morning, as students were heading to school, was worse, Canavan said. The shock was still fresh, and the accident was a stone’s throw from the school.

“Students are having difficulty [with the question] why did this have to happen? … Bad things don’t happen at school,” Canavan said.

White’s death was the latest in a string of student fatalities in Hillsborough County. But students seeking counseling Monday didn’t seem to be tallying the losses, Canavan said. Instead, the time and place was hitting them hard.

“The main thing is the total shock, both for the kids who knew him and the witnesses of the accident,” Canavan said. “It happened right here at school.”

Students who saw the accident were counseled not to drive the rest of the day, Canavan said. Most left school early, picked up by parents or friends.

Crisis counselors talked to about 25 other students in small groups, he said.

Camden was not well-known at Brandon High because he had been there for about four weeks, but he was adjusting well and building a reputation as an artist with a flair for animation, Canavan said.

“Camden had started off so well,” he said. “Everybody is talking about how great he was doing.”

School district officials said Assistant Principal Johnny Bush and another school employee, Ethenia “Lisa” Butler-Brooks, a health care technician, were the first to respond and try to revive White.

Gretchen Raulerson of Brandon saw the accident as she was waiting at the stop sign at Meade Road and Victoria Street.

She drives past Brandon High daily, she said, and often sees cars speeding along Victoria when the students are walking to school.

“I have often thought, ‘Someone’s going to get hit,’” she said. “There should be a light there or something.”

Traffic heading west on Victoria can’t go very fast during morning and afternoon rushes because traffic going into the student parking lot backs up, she said. But she often spots cars going east faster than the posted 35 mph limit, Raulerson said.

CASUALTIES NEAR SCHOOLS

•April 2004: Thomas Michael Priddy, 17, Riverview High School student, struck by a car driven by a fellow student and killed while riding his bike across Balm-Riverview Road on his way home

•October 2004:Rebecca McKinney, 16, Clearwater High School student, struck and killed by a pickup after getting off the school bus and trying to cross McMullen-Booth Road

•February 2005: Brooke Ingoldsby, 8, Sanderlin Elementary School pupil in Pinellas County, struck and killed by a sport utility vehicle after getting off her bus and trying to cross Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Street North in St. Petersburg to get home

•August 2005: Elysha Jennings, 15, Wharton High School student, critically injured after running across 40th Street to catch the school bus

•January: Katie Wood, 15, Chamberlain High School student, critically injured while crossing Busch Boulevard on her way to school

•March: Arielle Serrano, 15, Plant High School student, critically injured when she is hit by a car in front of the school while attempting to cross Dale Mabry Highway

•October: Fredrick Gardner, 15, East Bay High School student, hit and killed by a car while riding his bike to school

Source: Tribune archives

Reporter Liz Bleau can be reached at (813) 865-1557 or lbleau@tampatrib.com.

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