Boy Killed May Have Ridden in Back of Cart

Youths May Have Used Penny to Start Vehicle

Prince George's County police are investigating how a 12-year-old boy died after riding in a small motorized vehicle on a construction site near the massive National Harbor development.

Alexander L. Booker died Friday night after the vehicle he was riding in flipped over at 7721 Oxon Hill Rd. He was pinned under the vehicle, police said. They have not said who was driving or who owned the vehicle but said it did not belong to Alexander.

Michael Worthy, a lawyer hired by the boy's family, said he believes the vehicle was owned by a contractor at the site. He said the family is waiting for a police report to learn more but believes, based on conversations with police and neighbors, that Alexander and several other children walked onto the site at an entry that had no fence and started the vehicle using a penny.

He described the vehicle as similar to a golf cart with a bed in the back for carrying cargo, where he believes Alexander was riding when the vehicle turned over.

"We're concentrating on making sure other kids do not have access to this site," Worthy said.

An attorney for the National Harbor development did not return a phone call yesterday.

Alexander's family yesterday remembered him as an especially outgoing child who loved to cook and excelled at French.

"He was the type of kid who was always happy, and it was weird -- his happiness was always genuine," said his father, Al Booker. "If you were having a bad day, he'd say, 'Let's talk about it.' But then he'd do something silly to make you laugh."

Booker said that he and Alexander's mother are divorced and that the child was staying at his mother's home near the site. The boy was playing with neighborhood children he did not know well when the group went onto the site, his father said.

"I have got to hear more of the details," he said. "I don't know the full extent of what happened."

Alexander, who has a sister and two brothers, had just completed sixth grade at John Hanson French Immersion and Montessori School, where he took classes in French. With classmates not long ago, he had visited Canada to practice the language. He played defensive tackle for the Fort Washington Cannons, an after-school football team. His grandmother Rose Booker said he was an avid chef who specialized in grilled cheese sandwiches.

"I told him he was a lot like my father, his great-grandfather," Rose Booker said. "He had the ability to make conversation with everyone. Whether he knew them or not, by the time they left, he knew them."

Alexander's true passion, however, was restoring classic cars, his father said. The two of them would work for hours on the vehicles, and Alexander knew far more than many adults about the cars. The duo's prized project was the restoration of a black 1969 Dodge truck that Al Booker drove in drag races across the region.

"It was Alex's heart," his father said.

Staff researcher Rena Kirsch contributed to this report.