TY LONGLEY's Father: Rhode Island Inferno Charges Are Wrong

December 11, 2003

Laurel J. Sweet of the Boston Herald is reporting that the father of GREAT WHITE guitarist Ty Longley believes throwing the band's tour manager and the owners of the Rhode Island rock club where his son perished with 99 fans behind bars would only let society off from demanding history never repeat itself.

"Jail time is just a political way of saying, 'We did something,' " J. Patrick Longley, 60, said Wednesday. "We can all blame ourselves that we let this happen."

Longley, a construction estimator and project coordinator in Ohio, said The Station nightclub owners Michael and Jeffrey Derderian were justifiably charged by a grand jury with involuntary manslaughter, but said, "Their only crime was being cheap.

"I work in construction and I understand the small guy can't come in and put in a $60,000 sprinkler system, but he can use materials that are safe and that was not the case here. I'm a little upset that the city was totally absolved.''

Longley says that he doesn't believe that the surviving members of GREAT WHITE should be held accountable for his son's death either.

"I don't blame the band all that much," he said. "How can I be angry with guys who gave him a chance? There are times he hated playing with them, but he'd say, 'I'm playing in front of 15,000 people and I love it.' He's been around the world three times and I haven't been around once."

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