They couldn't have been more different one a teenager from affluent suburbia, the other a little kid from the poor part of the city. But John Tucker Mahoney and Shareif Hall would come to share a common experience as random, unsuspecting victims of terrible tragedies.
Tucker would be felled by a tiny piece of metal, a BB fired from the powerful, new-generation air rifle he got for his 16th birthday. Shareif, four years old, would be riding a transit system escalator on the day before Thanksgiving, when his brand new Fila shoe would get caught in the contraption s giant metal teeth.. Tucker and Shareif would also share one other thing. The tragedies that befell them were not merely bad luck but the result of wrongful, egregious conduct. Both cases involved bad actors : the manufacturer who sold some 7.5 million defective PowerLine air rifles (and later refused to remove them from circulation), and the transit authority that failed to properly maintain and upgrade its moving stairways.
The boys families, powerless to restore health or happiness, could not do much to help Tucker and Shareif. So they did the only other thing they could. They sought justice using the sole remedy available to them the legal system. Partners in the same Philadelphia law firm would represent the families and battle for them against well-known corporate entities: Daisy Manufacturing Company and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), a government-related agency. Both would deny they were at fault, one going so far as to conceal and even fabricate critical evidence. With crisp narration and great fidelity to detail, Robert Zausner s tells their harrowing story.
