7-Year-Old Crushed to Death in Schoolyard

A 7-year-old boy was crushed to death by an electric utility cart at Roscoe Elementary School on Friday, an accident that police said was triggered by schoolyard horseplay on the unmanned cart.

A group of children were playing on or near the cart about 3 p.m. when it started to roll down a slight incline, said Capt. Greg Meyer of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division. The boy, identified by school officials as second-grader Steve Silva, jumped in front of the cart in an apparent attempt to stop it and was pinned against a wall.

The child suffered massive head trauma and was in full cardiac arrest by the time paramedics arrived at the school, authorities said. He was pronounced dead at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank.

Roy Romer, the new superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, arrived at the shellshocked campus Friday evening.

“Our concern right now is what can we do to help the family, what can we do to help this community deal with the grief, and third, how can we prevent this from happening?” said Romer, the former governor of Colorado.

The superintendent said he spoke briefly to the boy’s father to express his condolences.

Principal Mary Kurzeka, looking distraught, said crisis counselors would be at the school on Monday to help students and teachers cope with the death. Classes at the 1,200-student campus had already been let out for the weekend about 1:40 p.m., an early dismissal, when the accident happened on a crowded schoolyard filled with children playing in an after-school program, school officials said.

Teachers were supervising the yard at the time, said Stephanie Brady, a district spokeswoman.

Several children milling around the brick building at 10765 Strathern St. later said that the orange-and-white utility cart, used for school maintenance, was often parked on the asphalt playground.

“It’s always out there,” said Angie Carranza, a fifth-grader.

“We chase it around when it’s moving,” added Roberto Julio, a sixth-grader at Sun Valley Middle School, who attended the elementary school last spring.

Police said they were focusing on what caused the vehicle, the motor of which appeared to be turned off, to roll.

“I don’t know if whether the cart should have been there is going to be an issue for us,” Meyer said. “How the cart started moving is the big issue.”

He said police were not sure whether the child had been inside the cart before he ran into its path.

Members of the boy’s family gathered at the hospital Friday night, but declined to comment.

District officials sidestepped questions about the cart’s presence on a bustling schoolyard, referring questions to police.

“This is just a really tragic thing,” Romer said. “There’s no way to generalize on safety issues with this.”

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Fausset is a correspondent; Fox is a Times staff writer.