Following the shooting death of a 15-year-old juvenile Friday night, Lycoming County Coroner Charles Kiessling Jr. is again voicing his concern over the loss of access to the state’s JNET system, which was removed from coroners in 2021.

“I’m frustrated, because everybody seemed to know about this child’s death, except the family, and we didn’t get a chance to even talk to them until late yesterday afternoon,” he said.

“If this kid’s mother had a driver’s license, I could go into JNET, pull up her ID, her address, and know where to go to make the notification,” Kiessling said.

Though the teen’s identity has not been officially released, social media was rampant with posts identifying the victim, with even the child’s school district playing a role in reaching his family, Kiessling said.

Kiessling said he had access to JNET for 20 years, until PennDOT Deputy Secretary for Driver and Vehicle Services Kurt J. Myers and state police decided that coroners are not criminal justice agencies.

“State and federal regulations identify us clearly as a criminal justice agency,” Kiessling said.

State Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, earlier this year introduced House Bill 528, which aimed to reinstate coroner access to the system, however there has been no movement in the legislature on passage of the bill, Kiessling said.

“They’ve done nothing in Harrisburg to move that legislation forward. We’ve tried discussions with PennDOT and state police, and they’ve refused to give us access back,” he said, calling this case a “perfect example” of why such access is so important.

“This is an incident where the family wasn’t notified for over 12 hours because we didn’t have accurate information. We actually ended up using social media as a tool to try and locate the family, which is obviously the least desirable way to be doing that, but when you have people in control of things that don’t want us to have access anymore, our hands are tied, so we do go to whatever resources we can,” Kiessling said.

“We need this legislation in Harrisburg to go through to get us the access we need so we don’t have families waiting half a day to be notified, but it’s going to happen more and more, because we’re not given access to the tools that we should to be able to reach these families,” he stressed.

“I wish the general public would rally, not just in Lycoming County, but across the state, and force the hands in Harrisburg to give us the tools we need to do our jobs,” Kiessling said.

Delaying the ability of the Coroner’s Office to notify family members of a loved one’s death could result in the family finding out through other, less sensitive means.

“That was my concern, that someone might get wind of this and throw a Facebook post out, and all of a sudden, the mother, who just thinks her kid went to a Halloween party, now finds out by social media that he’s dead. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, but it sure could have when you’ve got all these people that knew about it and were releasing information before the mother was even notified,” Kiessling said, adding, “we’ve got to fix some of these systems.”

“I was president of the state Coroner’s Association, when they pulled our access, and I actually went and testified in Harrisburg, and explained at this hearing that coroners are responsible for identifying the deceased. It’s not the police. Coroners are responsible for notifying next of kin, not the police. And if a person is going to be an organ and tissue donor, we have to authorize that. So it’s common sense that we should have access to JNET, because all of that information is contained there,” Kiessling said.

“Unfortunately, in Harrisburg, there is no common sense,” he said.

“I’ve been told I’m not very political. And know what? I’m okay with that, because I do what’s right,” Kiessling said.

“Whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, Independent or not even registered to vote, I’m going to do the right thing because that’s the way I was brought up, and that’s the way I’ve lived my life. And yet we can’t get common sense legislation like this through Harrisburg to give the coroners the tools they need to do their jobs. So it’s frustrating,” he said.