Family of man killed on Kilbourn Avenue drawbridge in downtown Milwaukee asks public for video footage, witness accounts
A lawyer for the family of the man killed on a downtown bridge asked on Wednesday for witnesses and those with video footage to come forward.
The attorney, Jay Urban, said he planned to file a notice of claim against the city ahead of a likely lawsuit and needed to gather as much information as possible.
"The family has retained me to make sure that there is some accountability for this," he said.
Urban also called for an independent investigation of Richard Dujardin's Aug. 15 death.
"If we don't look at the entire system failure, then we're never going to look at it," he said. "Some people called this a freak accident, stuff like that — this is a tragedy waiting to happen."
Dujardin, a 77-year-old retired reporter from Rhode Island, was in Milwaukee for a conference last month. He was walking over the Kilbourn Avenue bridge on his way to church when the bridge started rising.
His wife, Rose-Marie, was walking ahead of him and made it to the other side of the bridge, but Dujardin moved slowly and was hard of hearing.
More: Witness to Kilbourn Avenue Bridge death recalls horror of fall: 'This should not have happened'
According to witnesses, Dujardin was already on the bridge when the alarm bells and lights went off and the traffic gates lowered.
It remains unclear how the bridge operator, opening it remotely, missed Dujardin. Department of Public Works policy says he was supposed to be watching two soundless live video feeds of the bridge.
Dujardin clung onto a railing as the bridge deck rose to a 90-degree angle. Then he fell 71 feet to his death, according to witnesses and a report from the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office.
The family has said that as out-of-town visitors, Dujardin and his wife, Rose-Marie, didn’t know the bridge under their feet could open.
Urban on Tuesday pointed to the fact that the bridge didn't have any signage denoting it as a drawbridge.
He also questioned Public Works policies in operating the Kilbourn bridge remotely. The bridge is wider and longer than most downtown, he said, and it opens to a full 90 degrees while others don't.
"If you're going to man a bridge, this would be the one that certainly should be manned," Urban said.
Prosecutors last week said they were beginning to review the investigation but did not provide a timeline for when a charging decision may be made.
The investigation should scrutinize the entire process, Urban said, looking further than the error of one bridge operator.
"It's very convenient to maybe blame an operator, but I'm not so sure. A carpenter is only as good as his tools," he said. "Who is the vendor that installed these videos? Who set up this system?"
Public Works officials have defended the remote operation of bridges as a routine industry practice.
The Kilbourn Avenue bridge is controlled remotely out of the Water Street bridge tower, which also controls bridges over the Menomonee River.
Urban is hoping to acquire footage from security cameras on nearby downtown buildings that might have captured the incident.
The cameras that the bridge operator watches do not record and store any footage. Officials say the footage has never been recorded.
Urban asked any witnesses or anyone who has videos of the incident or information about bridge safety issues to contact him at jurban@wisconsininjury.com or 414-704-7207.
He also would like to find the woman in scrubs who helped comfort Rose-Marie Dujardin in the aftermath of the fall.
To bring a lawsuit against the city, notice of claim must be filed within 120 days of the incident. Urban wants to use that time to gather as much information as possible before submitting the notice.
Contact reporter Sophie Carson at (414) 223-5512 or scarson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @SCarson_News.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Family of Richard Dujardin, Milwaukee bridge death victim, plans suit
