Press Conference: Lawsuit filed after Illinois camp crash claimed the lives of five children

[00:00:13.27] - Lance D. Northcutt
There they are.

[00:00:21.02] - Lance D. Northcutt
Five beautiful children who had their whole lives ahead of them. A high school senior who was looking forward to life ahead at college. She wanted to be a teacher. Playful little girl, Catherine, that everyone called Kit. Two beautiful girls from wonderful families, classmates, and a curious young man who is a light to his family. These are all people that you will never meet. Children who had their whole lives ahead of them, full of dreams, full of love, full of experiences. That all ended on April 28th, 2025. We are here today to announce the beginning of a process by which the families of these children whose lives were lost in this senseless tragedy and others' families that were forever altered because their children were present or their children were horribly injured in this tragedy. We are at the beginning of a process to understand exactly what happened, not just the basics of what occurred that day, but what led to the point where a Jeep went through a cornfield over a road into an unprotected building where children thought they were safe. That process began with the filing of a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Sangamon County, Illinois.

[00:02:18.20] - Lance D. Northcutt
Our firm, Salvi Schostok Pritchard, along with the law firm of Frederick, Frederick W. Nessler Associates in Springfield, has undertaken the joint responsibility to represent these families, families of the deceased, families of the injured. The lawsuit that we have filed is against certain defendants, but understand that this is the first step in what we anticipate will be a very long process to understand the exact nature of what occurred, not just on April 28th, 2025, but in the months, in the years leading up to that date, and how in the world this senseless tragedy this loss of life ever could have happened. In Illinois, it's important to understand that in our civil courts, it's not a question of is one party responsible or is there a cause, a sole cause, but rather are there other causes. And so through this lawsuit, what we seek to establish is that this was not the fault of one driver, of one person, but there were other entities, other people involved that had a duty under the law to exercise ordinary care to the people that came into that facility. This was a day camp, an afterschool establishment where parents dropped off their children in trusting that they were going to be looked after, that they were going to be safe.

[00:04:03.20] - Lance D. Northcutt
And what we have learned in the course of our investigation, what we have seen over the past year, is that this building, where it was built, how it was built, was uniquely vulnerable to a tragedy like this or something like this happening. We're talking about a facility that had no protective bollards. In other words, the concrete barriers that would otherwise act as a barrier between out-of-control vehicles and a building where people are inside. And we've all seen these. These are becoming increasingly commonplace. Why was this a freak occurrence that had never happened before? Absolutely not. According to the Storefront Safety Council, in a study that was performed in 2022, where they captured just a small subset of data, about 10% of what they believed was out there, in conjunction with one of the world's leading insurers, Lloyd's of London, it was learned that storefront crashes in the United States happen more than 100 times a day. 46%, nearly half of all those crashes result in injuries. And of those crashes, almost 10% result in death. It doesn't take a structural engineer to understand the dynamics of what happens when a building is too close to a roadway, particularly one where vehicles might travel at a high rate of speed, particularly one where there is an intersection, because the vast majority of accidents happen at intersections.

[00:05:49.07] - Lance D. Northcutt
And this was a building that was constructed in a manner that never could have withstood the impact of a vehicle, where the people inside could not have seen that vehicle coming, and when there— where there were no protective barriers whatsoever that would have stopped the forward momentum of that vehicle. These are some of the things that we will be addressing in the course of the litigation. Under Illinois law, we also have the ability to name as respondents in discovery other parties that may have information that will shed light on who the party or parties responsible for this tragedy truly are. And so we have named the city of Chatham not as a party defendant, but as a necessary party that we will ask questions of, that we will request documents from. And we hope that in the course of our investigation, that information will shed more light on exactly what happened, how and why this building was constructed as it was, in the location that it was, and who all the parties are that may be responsible in some way for this culmination of events that led to this preventable tragedy and senseless death. I'll answer any questions right now.

[00:07:12.15] - Lance D. Northcutt
I do want to just say at the beginning that we are not going to go very deep into the substance of the allegations. Uh, the investigation, as we have begun, is ongoing. And so really, I'm going to speak more than anything to generalities and procedurally what's going to happen from here.

[00:07:31.18] - Audience
Lance, this is a different construction for a building. It was essentially a pole shed, wasn't it? Did that contribute to the potential for a loss of life?

[00:07:40.29] - Lance D. Northcutt
Absolutely. In our view, this was something similar to, to use your words, a pole shed. It looked like a shed. The materials that it was built from consisted of an outer, very flimsy shell and wood beam construction. It was essentially long 2x4s, and there was a frame that was built, a shell that was put around it. There were no windows on the street-facing side that people could have looked out of. And so even, you know, and we've seen this before in other cases where a vehicle is coming into a business and there are people there and there's an opportunity for folks to react. And very often lives are saved. There was no chance that these kids had, there was no chance that the staff had. This vehicle came in through the wall. They couldn't have seen it coming. And by the time they saw that vehicle, it was already in. And what happened inside is beyond comprehension. We're talking about children that were killed, that were dragged, and other children, their classmates, some of whom are siblings of these children that were killed, that watched this entire thing unfold. These families are bearing a loss that is indescribable.

[00:09:11.10] - Lance D. Northcutt
It's truly beyond human comprehension. And they have stayed strong for almost a year now. But what they still have not had is the opportunity to really understand how this all could have happened and certainly not have the opportunity for full accountability under the law. And that's why we're here.

[00:09:38.17] - Audience
How many kids How many kids were inside at the time?

[00:09:41.13] - Lance D. Northcutt
There were multiple kids inside. Um, it was a busy day. Um, there were often more than one family member. There were often, you know, multiple kids from the same family, uh, within the facility. Um, it was, it was a busy time. Um, our families consist not only of the families whose children were killed, but others that were injured seriously and others where they endured, they witnessed this horror show and struggle with this to the present day and probably will every day for the rest of their lives. I mean, th— this type of event being processed by 7-year-olds, 8-year-olds, 10-year-olds, it is not something that is lessened by the fact that They didn't suffer physical injuries. These are lifelong traumas that they have to endure, that the families have to endure.

[00:10:40.04] - Audience
Did the location, the sighting of the building, do you believe have any role in how it became susceptible to this kind of thing?

[00:10:47.13] - Lance D. Northcutt
We do. Uh, to use the old phrase of the Chicago architect, form follows function. And the function of this building, one assumes when it was created, when it was first occupied was to have children. It was a day camp. There were going to be kids there. And what we're struggling to understand is of all the places it could be located, why it was located there. And if so, why there weren't precautions in place at the time that could have avoided this loss of life. Early in our investigation, we went down there to see what the structure looks like today.. And it looks very similar to how it did the day before this tragedy happened, with one exception. There are now boulders— I can't even call them boulders— rocks about a foot tall that are placed around the facility. They are still not enough to stop the forward momentum of the vehicle, but it's indicative to us of the fact that there were things that could have been done, that should have been done, that were not done. And had they been done, lives could have been saved. Had they been done, these 5 children could be thinking about what a nice day it is outside today and when they're going to come home to their families.

[00:12:14.10] - Lance D. Northcutt
We don't know where this litigation will ultimately take us, but what we will tell you right here and right now is we are going to look at every conceivable decision that was made from the moment someone decided that this was the place where the Wynott facility was going to be located until that day. We are going to get these families answers and where appropriate, we are going to demand accountability in a court of law. Any other questions?

[00:12:54.06] - Lance D. Northcutt
Okay.

[00:12:55.21] - Lance D. Northcutt
Thank you, folks.