BABY, FATHER DIE IN CRASH OF POLICE CARS -- STUFFED ANIMALS MARK SPOT OF
TRAGEDY; NEIGHBORHOOD MOURNS WITH BOY'S MOTHER
[FINAL Edition]
Seattle Times Seattle, Wash.
Aug 21, 1997
Authors:                  RICHARD JONES
Dateline:                 PHILADELPHIA


Full Text:

PHILADELPHIA - The battered baby stroller was gone. Two mangled police
cars had long been towed away.

When daybreak came yesterday to 22nd and Snyder in South Philly, all that
was left was a teddy bear. Soon, it was joined by others.

By 10 a.m., there were 23 bears ringing the lamppost on the intersection's
northeast corner. By noon, the silent menagerie had grown to 47 - row after
row of old-fashioned brown teddy bears mixed with a stuffed gray shark,
Kimba the lion, a pint-sized dalmatian, a Sesame Street Elmo.

A collision between two police cars Tuesday night left Lemore Rich Sr.,
38, and his 7-month-old son and namesake dead.

South Philly mourned father and son and embraced the child's mother, Gwenessa
Moore, 30, who was injured in the crash, which occurred while the three
were heading home from an evening stroll.

Surrounded by family

You can't walk around this part of South Philly without bumping into some
member of the Moore family: three boys, three girls, 16 grandkids, who
knows how many great-grands. Most of them live within a few blocks of one
another on the narrow, row-house-lined streets.

They were in every way a happy family, Moore's brother, Lorenzo, said.
"Oh, they loved each other."

His sister and Rich weren't married, he said, but they had been together
five years and had shared a small brick rowhouse a few blocks away from
the rest of Moore's family.

They made a modest living. Rich worked as a dispatcher with ParaTransit.

Moore, a secretary with the city Water Department, was on maternity leave.

"She didn't want to go back to work," said her mother, Dorothy Moore, 62.
"She just wanted to take care of the baby. She said, `I just want to see
him get his first tooth, take his first step.'

"She was so protective of that baby," Dorothy Moore said. "Nobody could
do anything good enough for that baby. Not even me. I'd hold the baby and
she'd say, `Mom, give him here. I just want to make sure he's not wet.'
I said, `I know when a baby's wet.' She just wanted to hold him all the
time."

`Visiting everybody'

The family was walking from Lorenzo's house, headed for Dorothy Moore's
house with wallet-sized photos of the baby they had gotten that day.

"They were just walking down the street, visiting everybody, passing out
pictures. . . . They gave me a picture of the baby, and a half an hour
later . . ."

They were walking home from Dorothy Moore's house about 9 p.m. when they
stopped at an intersection. There were police cars coming.

A neighbor and family friend, Christine Feggans, 37, said she saw the couple
seconds before the accident.

"They were about to cross the street at 22nd and Snyder when they saw the
police cars coming toward them real fast," Feggans said. "They stepped
back onto the pavement. Both Gwenessa and Rich bent down to comfort the
baby, who started crying because of the noise."

Even if they had seen the impact of police cruisers 17 and 110, there was
not much time to react. In a fraction of an instant, witnesses said, patrol
car 17 careened out of control and struck all three members of the family.

Moore Sr. was pinned under one car. His son was thrown against a telephone
pole.

Lemore Rich Sr. was pronounced dead at the scene of multiple injuries.
His son was rushed to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was
pronounced dead.

Gwenessa Moore received minor injuries.

Three officers who were injured in the crash, and a fourth who was hurt
trying to help free Lemore Sr. from under a police car, were treated at
the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and released.

The police cars had been rushing to the scene of an "officer-assist" call.

According to police, the call went out after an officer called for a prisoner
transport wagon to pick up two women under arrest, but the wagon couldn't
find the officer.

"Two ladies fighting? And they needed all of those cops to go down there
for two ladies? They didn't need the whole district down there for that,"
said Dorothy Moore.

She said she believed the police had been negligent.

"I know they have a job to do, but I think they should stop and find out
where they're going and go a little slower," she said. "I don't think this
would have happened if they had been going slower."

Material from Associated Press is included in this report.

PHOTO; Caption: 1) AP: LEMORE RICH SR. AND HIS SON DIED TUESDAY DURING
A COLLISION OF TWO POLICE CRUISERS. 2) DAN LOH / AP: GERALDINE JOHNSON
PLACES A TEDDY BEAR AT THE SPOT WHERE LEMORE RICH AND HIS SON DIED. THE
TOYS WERE COVERED WITH PLASTIC BECAUSE OF RAIN.

Credit: KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS