City of Raleigh sued for Christmas parade death. Lawsuit says mistakes put people at risk

RALEIGH, N.C. — The parents of a girl killed at Raleigh’s 2022 Christmas parade is now suing the city and two special events employees for failing to safely plan and manage the event.

The lawsuit filed by Trey and April Brooks claims trailers used in the parade were unsafe, the parade emergency plan was inadequate, and employees of the city of Raleigh and the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association failed to properly plan and manage the parade, or take action to prevent Hailey’s death.

The lawsuit is seeking a judgment based on claims of wrongful death, negligence, and gross negligence and liability.

“Hailey’s death was foreseeable and would have been prevented if basic, reasonable, and well-known safety protocols had been adopted and enforced,” it says.

Hailey, 11, was performing with CC & Co. Dance Complex on Nov. 19, 2022, when the driver of the truck pulling the float behind them lost control and fatally struck the girl. The driver, fellow CC & Co. dancer Landen Glass, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, having a weapon at a parade, failure to reduce speed and improper brakes.

The Raleigh City Council approved new parade rules in June in response to the death.

New evidence changes lawsuit

In 2023, the Brooks family filed a lawsuit against Glass, D and L Floats LLC, CC & Co. Dance Complex Inc., and the Greater Raleigh Merchants Association, which organized the parade.

But after obtaining evidence about the parade float earlier this year, the family filed an amended lawsuit adding the city and its employees, Whitney Schoenfeld, the interim senior manager in the Office of Special Events and Kirk Archer II, a special events manager.

In September, a settlement was reached with Glass, now 22, and with the float and dance companies. The new evidence showed “that the negligent actions and omissions of the City of Raleigh and two of its employees were a proximate cause of Hailey Brooks’ death,” the amended lawsuit says.

Neither employee is protected by governmental immunity, it claims, because the city required the merchants association to purchase liability insurance that also covered the city, as a partner in sponsoring the parade, and its employees.

Claims: Bad planning, management

According to the lawsuit, several mistakes led to Hailey’s death at the parade, including an emergency action plan that was approved despite being “grossly inadequate by (city of Raleigh) standards and any reasonable event safety standards.”

The parade devolved into chaos before Hailey was hit, it says, when the float company let CC & Co. pick up its two floats early. As a result, those floats ended up out of order at the rear of the parade formation.

When the Raleigh Merchants Association realized the problem after the parade started, the trucks pulling the dance company floats were allowed to weave through parade participants and other floats to reach the correct position, at times “with less than six inches of clearance to squeeze these floats through the line,” it says.

That allowed a gap to open in the parade, and the first CC & Co. truck and float sped up to close the gap, it says, and the truck that Glass drove sped up to keep pace, despite still being in the midst of the parade participants. Glass said after the crash that his brakes failed and the emergency brake was not functional.

“In the chaos, the CC & Co. dance participants did not know what to do and were told to abandon their dance routine and run after the first float,” leaving their chaperones behind, it says. Raleigh police officers and merchants association staff who saw the chaos “did not stop the Truck, stop the Parade, or take any steps to bring order to the chaos,” it claims.

Bystanders, volunteers and chaperones attempted to help, at least one of which tried to pull Hailey out of harm’s way before she was hit, it says.

The 1950s farm trailer also was unsafe, the lawsuit claims. It was not registered with the N.C. Division of Motor Vehicles and was not meant to travel on public roads or “be legally operated in the parade,” it says. It also didn’t have brakes, even though it carried 29 children and a weight of more than 2 tons, which violated a state law requiring brakes, it says.

All of the parade trailers were “safety hazards,” being “decades old, unstable, had rotten wood on their decks and improperly inflated tires,” it says.

A court hearing to amend the lawsuit is scheduled for Oct. 21.

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