The $3 million civil suit against BART brought forward by the family brutalized in the infamous deplorable teen flash mob robbery has now morphed into a much larger class action suit with more plaintiffs and, presumably, a far larger cash settlement being sought. A lawsuit filed Friday morning in the Alameda County Superior Court adds three more victims and two other violent BART robbery episodes to the latest legal move in the ongoing gripe that BART is hiding ts crime problem.
In addition to Russell and Patricia Stapp, and their daughter Amanda who were celebrating little Amanda’s birthday, for pete’s sakes, when attacked and robbed on April 22 the new plaintiffs include fellow swarm mob victim Mohammed Rasul, who was jobbed of a family heirloom that day according to KQED.
“It’s the closest I’ve ever been to feeling like I might die,” Rusty Stapp told the East Bay Times. You’ll recall that Stapp earlier said of the swarm robbery. "We could hear the conductor over the intercom telling the crowd [of deplorable teens] to stand back or the doors would not open. Then two seconds later, the doors opened.”
The other new plaintiffs are Timothy Howk (robbed on BART, April 18) and Daniel Mendez (robbed on BART, March 20). One of those defendants provided KRON 4 with an image uploaded to his iCloud account shortly after the theft, making it pretty clear what the deplorable teens were up to.
BART attorney Dale Allen contends to the East Bay Times that the transit system cannot conceivably prevent all of these attacks. “BART serves nearly 400,000 patrons a day, at 46 stations, on 128 miles of track,” he said. “BART is dedicated to trying to stop every crime but knows it cannot.”
“It’s an unfortunate tragedy for the people involved, but BART did what it could with what it had as every other police agency in the state of California tries to do daily,” Allen argued.
This, though, is precisely the plaintiffs’ point of contention. They allege that BART police were at the stations and on duty at the times of the attacks, and merely failed to respond. That’s an allegation that will be aired in court. But it sure sounds similar to a July 20 teen mob attack at the Richmond Station during which BART employees were described as “uninterested,” and BART police refused to respond because they figured it was the Richmond Police’s jurisdiction.
Related: Man Threatens To Kill Everyone On BART Train, Is Allowed To Board By BART Cop