Police Worker Gave It His All Killed Clearing Accident On I-10
Submitted By N.O.V.A.
Times Picayune 	05-9-1997


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The 52-year-old reserve officer for the East Jefferson Levee Board and the Orleans
Parish Civil Sheriff's Office died Wednesday night at Methodist Hospital a day
after he was crushed by motorists passing by an interstate accident he stopped to
help clear.

But those who knew Grice said he died doing what he loved most, his job.

Divorced, with his three children grown, he quit his job as a longtime mechanic to
fulfill his dream.

He retrofitted his car with a forest of lights, sirens and antennas that made
standard cop cars look under-equipped.

Then he completed the dream by volunteering with reserve officer programs and
scratching by on security details he got through the Civil Sheriff's Office.

"You'd call him in for eight hours and he'd stay 12," East Jefferson Levee Police
Chief R.L. Daigle said. "You couldn't get rid of him because he loved doing it,
and he did it for free."

He quickly became a lieutenant with the Levee Board after joining in 1994, Daigle
said. In 1991, he signed up as one of the civil sheriff's 25 uniformed reserve
deputies.

Friends estimated that he volunteered 60 to 100 hours a week.

"The guy looked like a fireplug, he had the crew cut and everything," said Daigle,
who was Grice's golf buddy as well as his boss. "He lived and breathed this life;
he loved it."

There will be no stories of derring-do at his funeral. Dodging bullets and high-
speed chases weren't in Grice's job description, said Lea Young, the chief of the
civil sheriff's reserve deputies program.

"Some people make fun of people like him, but we need people like Frank," Young
said.

Grice was content to ride high on patrol along the levee or keep a stern vigil at
a bingo game dressed in his starched sheriff's uniform.

"There are lots of men and women like Frank who work and work and you just don't
hear about it," Young said. "When the accident happened, he was doing what he was
trained to do and he went the extra mile."

Even when Grice wasn't on duty, he lived the part of a badge-carrying do-gooder
that Young was so proud of.

On Tuesday afternoon along Interstate 10, he saw a New Orleans police officer
working a car accident at the Read Boulevard exit, New Orleans police said.

He was off-duty, but he slowed his personal cop car, reported the accident on the
police radio he always kept nearby and pulled over to assist.

After helping, he discovered the assemblage of lights had drained his car's
battery, New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Sgt. Erin Tumminello said.

A friend driving on the interstate saw Grice and pulled over into the westbound,
left lane to help jumpstart his car, Tumminello said.

Grice was standing between the two cars when John Lever, 42, of Long Beach, Miss.,
got distracted by a passing motorcade, police said.

Lever swerved his Ford Explorer out of the left lane, but hit Grice's car door.
Michael Miller, 49, of Gretna, was following close behind and rammed his Crown
Victoria into the back of Grice's car, police said.

Friends said that Grice asked doctors at Methodist Hospital to save his mangled
legs at any cost, but he died Wednesday night, officials said.

Young said Grice's diabetes and high blood pressure might have hindered his
recovery.

"But then he'd be destitute and miserable and he couldn't be doing what he really
loved," she said. "I don't know, it's just such a sad, sad story."

Both drivers were initially cited for failing to maintain reasonable vigilance,
though the New Orleans police fatality unit is investigating and the charges may
be increased to negligent homicide, officials said.

Grice will be buried with full police honors Saturday, though details of the
funeral were unavailable Thursday night.