Columnist: Father says his son died due to fight

Thursday, June 20, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

IT WILL BE four weeks Friday that Danny Macchirella was buried and laid to rest. In an unusual but telling sentiment, his father wishes the police would request that the body be exhumed.

Vinnie Macchirella is more convinced than ever that his son, an amateur boxer of some note in Las Vegas and a 16-year-old sophomore at Las Vegas High at the time of his death, died as a result of an assault on the school grounds. If the body was exhumed, Macchirella believes Metro police could be convinced his son was killed, as opposed to having died as a result of repercussions from an unsubstantiated boxing injury as authorities allege.

A seven-inch gash in the back of Danny Macchirella's head is central to the issue. The police report doesn't mention the gash (although the coroner's report should include that information, thereby making an exhumation unnecessary). Regardless, Vinnie Macchirella says he has firsthand evidence of the gash's existence and if it would help to dig up his son's body for additional examination, he's in favor of it.

"I've seen it with my own eyes," he said Wednesday. "One of the nurses (at University Medical Center) snuck me in to see the CAT scan X-rays (while Danny was still alive, albeit in a coma). She could have gotten fired for it, but she said she had a kid at home and she said 'You should see this.' The police don't acknowledge it, but there's a large crack in Danny's skull. The crack is thin but very large."

Macchirella maintains the gash in his son's skull is the result of being hit during a fight in the Las Vegas High parking lot. A female student told him she was a witness to a fight that happened in the morning, before school, on May 17, the day Danny Macchirella later collapsed and never regained consciousness.

"She said it was a guy from the 28th (Street Gang)," Macchirella said. "She knows the guy but doesn't want to get too involved because of all the gang bangers."

Police did not question the girl and didn't have much contact with Macchirella, he said. A Metro contact said the police called Macchirella's home and left messages, but he didn't respond.

"Metro let me down," Macchirella said. "There's a few leads they can go to if they want. But they took the report by the school district police and never questioned it."

The school police report implies that Danny passed out and suffered an aneurysm in the boys' locker room as the result of having been injured while boxing at the Golden Gloves Gym a night earlier. But Vinnie Macchirella (and gym operator Hal Miller) maintain there was no injury; further, Vinnie said his son had come to him asking for advice about a confrontation with another young man that he felt was inevitable.

"He took a girl home one night and her brother didn't like it," Vinnie Macchirella said. "The guy was in the 28th and he let Danny know that there was going to be trouble. Danny came to me and asked me what he should do. All I said was stay out of alleys and places where they can team up on you."

Danny had been in a fight a year earlier near Circus Circus and suffered a beating at the hands of five men. A police report was filed.

Macchirella believes the school police covered up his son's death because the school district might be liable for damages.

"Danny supposedly told all his teachers that day that he was having bad headaches and no one insisted he go to the school nurse," Macchirella said. Asked why Danny didn't just go on his own, his father said "He wasn't that type of guy."

Danny's macho instincts aside, his father feels the school district has some liability in the case.

"There was severe negligence," he said. "That's the reason for the school to want to cover it up. No one escorted him to the nurse's office, as they're supposed to do. When he did collapse, he didn't receive oxygen and there was no mouth to mouth. He had complained to every teacher and they were negligent all the way around. He got no treatment at the school -- none. He was told to go to the locker room (during physical education class), if he was told that at all."

Danny was found unconscious in the locker room, face down, his father said, eliminating the possibility of the seven-inch gash occurring during that particular fall. Three days later, Danny died.

"I don't want the money from some lawsuit and I don't want vengeance like I might have when I was a young man," Macchirella said. "What I want is justice. I don't believe the kid he had a fight with wanted to kill him, but that's how it ended up happening.

"The school police knew that he was a boxer, so they blamed it on that. Metro took their word for it, and now they're so far behind they don't care."

There was some thought at Metro that Vinnie Macchirella was simply in denial, but he claims the facts -- like that seven-inch gash -- merit reviewing the case even if it means digging up his son's grave.

"I'm pursuing this as much as I can," he said. "I was told by the girl who saw the fight that there was a crowd around for it. No one ever tried to question those people.

"Why doesn't Metro just verify the head injury? It would take exhuming the body, but that at least would get things started."

Failing to get Metro's ear, the father carries on in relative silence.

"I'm outspoken about it," he said, "but it's just me on my own. The hospital tipped me off that something was wrong, but that doesn't answer the question of who it was Danny was fighting.

"It would be nice to get some answers. It's a month now and the days still don't go by easy."