Massachusetts Escalator Inspectors Penalized After Death

Officials have begun termination proceedings against two suspended safety inspectors after a 4-year-old boy fell to his death from a store escalator at a mall in central Massachusetts.

The Department of Public Safety will also suspend six other inspectors for five days and reprimand 26 others after a sweep of all escalators in Massachusetts found 7.5 percent lacked barricades required to cover a gap between the moving staircases and walls.

A missing barricade caused Mark DiBona of Dudley to fall from an escalator on the second floor of Sears and land on a display case at the Auburn Mall in March.

The department said in a statement released Wednesday that officials are taking disciplinary action against the inspectors because they failed to enforce a code requiring the barricade for openings larger than 5 inches.