MEMPHIS, Tenn. – Two days after a package handler was killed while working at the Fedex hub, a Fedex official is taking questions from reporters.
But as desperate as 23-year-old Duntate Young’s family is for answers about his death, no answers were given at a Friday evening press conference.
“We’re just so sorry,” said Shannon Brown, senior vice president of operations at Fedex Express.
Pressed repeatedly for information about how Young died, Brown referred to an ongoing OSHA investigation.
“The video tape that we have does not conclude all the facts,” he said.
Asked if Fedex had been in touch with Young’s family, Brown said the company had.
“We have reached out to them. We’ve made ourselves available,” he said.
But Brown’s family said that’s only happening now, days after his death. After they referred Fedex to their attorney, Howard Manis, he released this statement:
“To date, Federal Express has been uncooperative in our attempts to gather information on behalf of Duntate’s family.”
But Brown disputes any assertion that Fedex has been unhelpful.
“If they at any point want to reach out to Fedex, any information that we can share with them, we’d be more than happy to,” Brown said.
A look at Fedex’s safety record shows 24 OSHA violations this year at various locations across the country, although Fedex employs more than 450,000 people worldwide, according to its website.
Fedex was fined more than $150,000 combined for this year’s violations.
The last deadly accident WREG could find at Fedex was in 2017, when a Memphis worker was run over by a piece of equipment.
“We’ve invested a tremendous amount of dollars to ensure that our employees have the safest environment they possibly can,” said Brown.
According to OSHA’s website, the agency has up to six months to complete its investigation.
Brown said Fedex is also conducting an internal investigation.
“It is not our intent to speculate on what led to Duntate’s untimely passing. Our No. 1 priority is to ensure that Duntate’s family is given a clear understanding of what happened in this situation,” Manis wrote in his statement.
