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Video captures moments before BU professor’s fatal fall near MBTA station

Professor David Jones fell through a staircase near the JFK/UMass MBTA station back in September.

David Jones. BU School of Public Health

February 11, 2022

Professor David Jones

Newly released video shows Boston University professor David Jones entering the closed staircase near the JFK/UMass MBTA station in September, moments before he fell to his death.

In the surveillance footage obtained by WCVB, Jones can be seen running on the street and then walking up the staircase. The video doesn’t show Jones falling through the stairs, so it remains unclear if the steps collapsed or they were missing prior (according to Google Earth images, four steps were missing in November 2020; six steps were missing after Jones’s fall, WCVB reports).

Police photos obtained by the news station also show a gap in the fence that was blocking off the staircase.

Jones, 40, was training for a 50-kilometer run the day he died, according to the news station. The tragic accident happened back on Sept. 11.

No charges were filed in Jones’s death. The staircase had been deemed unsafe some 20 months prior to the accident.

“The DA’s decision not to bring any criminal charges in this matter in no way exonerates those responsible for this wholly avoidable accident that took a good man’s life,” an attorney for Jones’s family said in a statement to WCVB. “There was not a single sign that would warn a person as to the grave but hidden danger in this structure, and certainly no attempt was ever made to convey to the public that those dangers were potentially lethal.”

Jones left behind his wife and three children.