UNNAMED VICTIM: State police refusal to disclose name adds to family trauma

Mar. 16—REED CITY — Months after his death, Pete Mimnaugh's family is still wondering why it happened and why it's been handled this way.

On Oct. 27, 2023, the 65-year-old Mimnaugh was killed after a Blue Lakes charter bus carrying Traverse City West High School cross country runners struck his Buick Enclave on M-115 in Middle Branch Township.

The crash report shows his car had "disabling damage." He was pronounced dead by the time an ambulance transported him to the hospital.

Mimnaugh had been working as a courier, driving deliveries to different locations. He had spent the past year saving up money so he could fly to Hawaii and attend his daughter's wedding. He died three months before then.

One of Mimnaugh's four children, Dan, and his wife, Stevie Brooks, said they were surprised that their beloved father was never named in any of the local news coverage of the crash.

"We didn't realize his level of community involvement until the funeral — it was packed," Brooks said. "There were no seats left."

She said they also were confused and concerned about the lack of information and investigation that followed the fatal crash.

"He was a consistent volunteer and his passing had this huge ripple effect on everyone, and it continues to," she said. "At that time, we didn't have a lot of details about it and, slowly, as more information started coming out, we realized that there was a lot of information that people would want to know about."

Brooks remembers Pete's love of gardening, hunting, fishing and helping people.

"Pete was amazing at flowers, so their yard was full of all different plants, all seasonally based," she said. "When I met Dan, I was also in high school, and I would always go over there and I thought it was amazing."

Before she left for college in North Carolina, Brooks said Pete gave her some Hens and Chicks, which are a type of succulent that looks like a flower in bloom, and she planted them in her parent's yard for safekeeping. Those plants have moved with her parents to every house they've lived in since.

"Pete was just this super gardener, and he loved being outside," she said.

Dan said his father also was involved in leadership roles with local chapters of Narcotics Anonymous after kicking his own addiction to painkillers.

Pete devoted his free time to leading the meeting, working with young people struggling with substance use disorder and visiting folks at local jails, his son said.

In addition to the memorial service that was organized by the Mimnaughs, Dan said local NA groups hosted their own memorial for his dad with hundreds of people in attendance.

"He has such a large capacity to care about his family, and care about these people as if they're family," Brooks said about Pete's work with NA.

The fact that he was not identified as the crash victim in any of the local media reports stems from a recent policy change by Michigan State Police.

According to the department's public information office, the state police will no longer release the names of people who have died.

In an email at the time that the Record-Eagle was made aware of this new policy, Public Information Officer for lower Northwest Michigan Lt. Derrick Carroll said the policy change "was made in the best interest of treating everyone with dignity and respect."

"This is not an effort to restrict public information or inhibit transparency," Carroll wrote, "but, instead, a shift we are making as we continually review how to best serve all our customers as a modern police agency."

Shanon Banner, state police director of communications and outreach, said the modification of the naming policy was "to protect the privacy of the victims."

"It in no way precludes the media from reporting about them, especially when/if the family is requesting news coverage," she wrote in an email to the Record-Eagle in response to being asked why Pete was never named by the state police.

For the Mimnaughs, grieving the loss of their beloved father, grandfather and community member has been hard.

Some days they said they could only muster the strength to repost a local news article on Pete's death, unable to bear the emotional brunt of explaining the gruesome crash and aftermath.

Having to repeatedly tell friends and community members that their dad has died was traumatizing, they said.

"It did kind of feel like my dad is this unnamed victim — and why is that?" Dan said. "Because he had a name and he was a person, and that would be important to people.

"Unfortunately, we've had several occasions since my dad's passing where people didn't know that he had passed, and I'm sure that happens in every situation. But how many people did we have to inform about it that may have read one of those articles, but because his name wasn't in it, they didn't know."

The police report states that the fatal crash occurred after the Blue Lakes Charters driver, Barry Mazurek, became "distracted" when he checked his phone's GPS coordinates for directions.

The report goes on to mention "careless driving" in connection with Mazurek.

State trooper Austin Taylor from the Mount Pleasant Post said he cannot comment on the case. His report was sent to the Osceola County Prosecutor's Office, where Prosecuting Attorney Anthony Badovinac filed criminal charges against Mazurek, who was arrested earlier this week.

He has been charged with involuntary manslaughter with a vehicle, according to court records. His next scheduled court date is at 9:15 a.m. Thursday at the 77th District Court in Reed City.

According to Osceola County Sheriff's Office records, Mazurek was released Wednesday after posting 10% of a $10,000 cash and/or surety bond.

Ryan Cupp, head of operations for Blue Lakes, confirmed earlier this week that Mazurek no longer works for the company. He would not say whether Mazurek had been fired or resigned and said he could not comment further because the matter was "in litigation."

Members of Pete's family said there is no litigation.

After being contacted by a Record-Eagle reporter, Mazurek said "no comment," and hung up the phone.

Blue Lakes is a family-owned business that provides transportation services throughout Michigan and northern Ohio, according to the company's website. It is owned by the Cupp family.

"Pete's car made it so that the bus full of children didn't hit the back of the semi," Brooks said. "One thing everyone talks about immediately afterward is if Pete was aware that none of the children were hurt, he would've been happy about that."

Members of Pete's family also said they were concerned by a lack of response from Traverse City Area Public Schools system officials following the crash, especially since children were on board at the time of the collision.

"It's kind of disappointing they waited four months to conduct an investigation because, when conducting an investigation, you want to conduct it as close to the event as possible because memories fade and information gets lost," Dan said.

Dan and his wife said they found the TCAPS' lag time in the investigation concerning, noting that all four of Pete's children and many of his grandchildren currently attend or graduated from TCAPS schools.

TCAPS Superintendent John VanWagoner said he received a copy of the police report in the last 30 days.

"At the request of some parents and community members, I'm in the process of setting up a meeting with Blue Lakes," he said.

Looking ahead, VanWagoner said he wants to discuss Blue Lakes' protocol for emergency situations and how it notifies affected parties and communicates with its clients; in this case, TCAPS. He said he also plans on asking what the company's protocols are for its drivers.

TCAPS is still using Blue Lakes to transport district students, according to VanWagoner. "We really need them for our routes, especially our long-distance travel," he said.

Even using Blue Lakes and other charter bus services, they still have trouble sometimes finding transportation for school events, the superintendent said. He noted that he has a Commercial Driver's License, or CDL, and said he has kept his driver training up to date in the event that he is needed.