Truck Victim Remembered as Exuberant

The 7-year-old Westminster boy who died when he was run over by a tow truck was identified Thursday as William David Fontenot.

Neighbors set out votive candles to mark the spot where the child was killed Wednesday as he rode his bicycle in the mobile-home park where he lived with his mother and older sister. Officials said he died of massive head injuries.

Investigators said the boy was biking close behind a tow truck responding Wednesday to an emergency call in the Los Alisos Mobile Home Estates on Garden Grove Boulevard. When the driver stopped and backed up, the truck crushed the child, who died instantly, police said. No charges will be filed against the driver, who is distraught over the accident, Westminster Police Officer Robin Kapp said.

The child’s mother could not be reached Thursday for comment.

At George S. Patton Elementary School in Garden Grove, where the child was a second-grader, Principal Barbara Gibbons remembered the 7-year-old as an imaginative and exuberant boy who enjoyed karate and other sports. Psychologists were at the school Thursday to meet with children after they learned of the fatal accident.