A 34-year-old tree-trimming worker in Apple Valley, Minnesota, faces a felony manslaughter charge after prosecutors say he crushed his 26-year-old coworker's head with a hydraulic grapple while the two were playing with shadows on the job.
Christopher Boone Crimmins was operating a boom, a movable mechanical arm mounted on a truck, on August 20 when he allegedly began maneuvering the hydraulic grapple so its shadow on the street appeared to grab the shadow of his coworker, Tyler Anthony Lynch. The Dakota County criminal complaint states that Crimmins was watching the shadows, not the actual equipment, when he opened and closed the grapple. It struck Lynch's head.
Lynch, who had been on the ground cleaning up branches, was pronounced dead at the scene. Police who responded found, as the complaint describes, "a significant amount of blood around him and significant trauma to his head." Officers also observed blood on the grapple itself, which was positioned directly above Lynch's body. Crimmins now faces one felony count of second-degree manslaughter, a charge that carries up to ten years in prison and a $20,000 fine.
The criminal complaint, as Fox News reported, includes Crimmins's own account of what happened. He told investigators that he and Lynch had noticed the sunlight casting shadows of both the grapple and of Lynch onto the street. The two were, in Crimmins's words, "f---ing around", and Crimmins began positioning the grapple's shadow to make it look like it was grabbing Lynch's shadow.
But Crimmins was not tracking where the real grapple was in relation to Lynch's body. The Dakota County Attorney's Office stated plainly what followed:
"Crimmins was not monitoring the actual grapple or Lynch. He then opened and closed the grapple, crushing Lynch's head."
An unnamed witness corroborated the account, telling investigators the grapple appeared to "hit or pinch" Lynch's head as it moved toward him. The New York Post reported that the two coworkers had been making shadow puppets with the heavy equipment, a detail that underscores how far the horseplay had strayed from any legitimate work task.
Dakota County prosecutors did not allege that Crimmins intended to harm Lynch. The charge is second-degree manslaughter, which under Minnesota law applies when a person causes a death through culpable negligence, meaning the person created an unreasonable risk and consciously took chances of causing death or great bodily harm. That is exactly the language authorities used in the complaint.
A hydraulic grapple is a heavy, claw-like attachment designed to grip and move tree trunks and large branches. It is industrial equipment built to exert enormous force. Using it to play shadow games with a person standing beneath it is, by any common-sense measure, reckless.
Crimmins was booked into Dakota County Jail. A judge set bail at $40,000 without conditions, or $20,000 with conditions. The specific conditions were not detailed in the complaint. His next court date is set for September 10.
Tyler Anthony Lynch was 26 years old. He was doing his job, cleaning up branches on the ground, when the equipment operated by his coworker ended his life. One Facebook user who appeared to know Lynch wrote, "I can tell we lost one of the best. RIP buddy."
The criminal complaint does not name the tree-trimming company that employed both men. It is unclear whether the company had safety protocols governing the use of boom-mounted grapples, or whether any workplace safety investigation is underway alongside the criminal case. Crimmins has not yet entered a plea.
Every construction site, logging crew, and tree-trimming outfit in the country operates on one basic rule: heavy equipment is not a toy. A young man is dead because that rule was ignored, and the criminal justice system is right to hold someone accountable for it.
