Over two years after a shooting during San Francisco's LGBT pride celebration left a Los Angeles man with a shattered leg, the event's organizers have settled with him for an undisclosed amount of compensation.
It was 6:35 p.m. and SF Pride's 2013 events had just started to wind down when shots rang out near Larkin and Grove streets. Two Pride celebrants were struck in the melee: Trevor Gardner, a 24-year-old aspiring personal trainer from LA, and a man named Eric Ryan.
The gunfire shattered a bone in Gardner's leg, Gardner's lawyer, Ryan Lapine, told SFist during an interview in 2014.
Since Gardner was "planning on becoming a personal trainer...this has thrown his career plan into flux," Lapine said last year. "He'll never be active or run again."
Incidents like 2013's have continued in the years that followed: There were three shootings in the area of the Pride celebration in 2014, and a bystanding Pride celebrant was injured when an altercation turned into a gunfight in 2015.
Given Pride's track record of violence, organizers "should have been on notice," Lapine told SFist, saying that the shooting could have been prevented if Pride had erected fences and checked people as they entered the festival area.
In May, 2014 Lapine filed a lawsuit that demanded $10 million in damages for Gardner's injuries. In it, Lapine argued that "Notwithstanding the numerous Prior SF Pride and Halloween Shootings and Stabbings that have transformed the event into a Virtual shooting gallery in the high Crime Tenderloin, SF Pride Committee, on information and belief, failed to secure the perimeter of the event in 2013, allowed individuals to enter the event with little or no security screening, and failed to maintain an adequate security presence at the event."
According to the Bay Area Reporter, the case had made it as far as a trial, "but the jury that had just been selected was dismissed after an error in the juror questionnaire...A new jury was supposed to be selected this week."
Instead, this Tuesday SF Pride settled the lawsuit, the BAR reports. It's unclear how much Gardner got for his injuries, as neither Lapine not Maria Caruana, the attorney for SF Pride, would discuss any details of the confidential settlement.
And Pride might not be done writing checks to shooting victims! According to the BAR, Eric Ryan, the second victim injured during the 2013 incident, has also filed a suit against Pride's organizers. His case is ongoing.
Previously: Man Shot At SF Pride Sues For $10 Million