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A lawyer representing the family of a mother and young child who died in a tragic fall at the Padres’ Petco Park last season is accusing the city of San Diego of duplicitous self-interest in ruling the deaths as a murder-suicide.

Raquel Wilkins, 40, and her two-year-old son Denzel Browning-Wilkins died last September when they fell the equivalent of six stories from Petco Park before a Padres game.

The San Diego Police Department ruled the deaths a murder-suicide on Wednesday.

According to the San Diego Union-Tribune, attorney Dan Gilleon, who represents Wilkins’ father, mother and sisters, alleged that San Diego police “refused to provide us an ounce of information” and “flat out refused to explain” why they ruled the deaths what they did.

San Diego police homicide Lt. Andra Brown wrote in an email to the outlet that homicide investigators “do not typically (release) information to the suspect’s family.”

She clarified that police told Wilkins’ family about their finding, but didn’t elaborate whether the family received intel about how they came to it.


  Petco Park in San Diego ZUMAPRESS.com Petco Park in San Diego ZUMAPRESS.com

Gilleon said he believes that this is a convenient ruling to shield San Diego, which owns 70 percent of the stadium, from liability.

“The city of San Diego owns that ballpark, it is legally responsible, assuming that what caused her to fall was anything but her intent,” Gilleon said Wednesday. “The only way the city is not at fault is if she intended to kill herself and her baby.”

At the time of the deaths, a witness told the San Diego Union-Tribune that the mother and son were jumping up and down on the bench of a picnic table near a railing at an eating concourse.

The witness said they seemed to be very happy. She said she had noticed that the woman and child lost their balance and nearly fell over, and was surprised to see them standing on the bench again.


  Raquel Wilkins and her two-year-old son Denzel Browning-Wilkins Facebook Raquel Wilkins and her two-year-old son Denzel Browning-Wilkins Facebook

“She again lost her balance and this time, fell over the edge,” the witness said. “From my vantage point, looking at her back, it was almost like she rolled over the railing.”

The witness said that a man with them, believed to be the child’s father, looked on in shock in wake of the tragedy.

The witness provided the statement about the deaths to the outlet through her own daughter, and was not directly interviewed.

Gilleon, the attorney, called it “extraordinarily dangerous and stupid” that the picnic tables were so close to the railing, which is only a few feet high.

“Like any other property owner, (the city was) required to keep people on (its) property safe,” he said.

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