JOPLIN, Mo. —  The basketball goal that fell in the Missouri elementary school gymnasium last month and killed a high school student “did not have certain safety features either designed into it, manufactured or installed that would have prevented this tragedy,” the attorneys for the Joplin School District and the student’s family jointly told the Joplin Globe on Friday.

Spencer Nicodemus, 18 and a senior at the high school, was volunteering in the Irving Elementary School gymnasium on the morning of March 2 when he was struck and killed by a falling basketball goal.

Scott Vorhees, the Joplin attorney representing the family of the young student, declined to elaborate on the type of safety features on the basketball goal, or how they were deficient. He also declined comment on specific safety measures that have been added to the southwester Missouri school district’s basketball goals since the accident.

“I can tell you generically that the backboard attaches to the pole or the mast” that hangs from the ceiling or other foundation, he said. “The attachment-point bolts have been inspected and tightened to the correct specifications, and there have been additional hardware added to make sure that the backboard cannot become unsecured.”

Both Vorhees and Pat Keck, the Springfield, Missouri-based attorney who represents the school district, have declined at this point to elaborate further, citing the pending investigation.

“We have a number of people at the school, manufacturers (and) contractors who are all very interested in getting to the truth of what happened and putting in place safeguards to make sure this never happens again,” Vorhees said.

Part of the investigation involves combing through the thousands of documents related to the construction of Irving, which was built after a catastrophic 2011 tornado and opened in January 2014. Via contracts, bids, construction orders and related documents, attorneys and school officials are trying to determine who was involved in which projects, Keck said.

“It was a professionally done project, and we need to see who did what, and as you can imagine, people are kind of pointing fingers at each other,” she said.

Keck said an engineer from an independent firm, unconnected to the school district, has been reviewing the features of each basketball goal in the schools and making recommendations on improvements to their safety. The goals are not in use until that process is complete, she said.

“Any goals that the engineer believes something needs to be done with will be done, and no goal will be done until the engineer signs off on it,” she said.

Vorhees said he and the family have been supportive of taking those extra safety measures to try to prevent future accidents.

“The primary concern had been to identify what we needed to do to make this school safe again, and we feel comfortable that that investigation has been completed,” he said. “But trying to figure out where (responsibility lies) in the chain of people involved … that investigation will continue for some time.”

Younker writes for the Joplin, Missouri Globe.