A do-it-yourself stage cover designed by a Westfield High School employee may be to blame for the stage’s collapse during a musical performance last month.
The Hamilton County Prosecutor’s Office has reviewed the circumstances surrounding the incident which injured more than a dozen students – one of whom hasn’t returned to school – but found no basis to charge auditorium director Quentin James with any crime.
West field Superintendent Mark Keen says the stage had a cover with metal supports that was to be put in place when the orchestra pit was empty, but James apparently designed his own and installed it instead.
Speaking to reporters, Keen says the size of the revue theatre students were staging may have been the genesis of the new design.
The school corporation is going to do its own fact-finding, as well.