by Bob Walsh
Generally speaking law enforcement does not owe a duty of protection to any specific individual citizen and therefore, generally speaking, citizens can not successfully sue governments for failing to protect them.
That being said the survivors of a young woman who was stabbed to death by a chronic fare evader at a BART station in Oakland last year are suing.
Nia Wilson, 18, is the dead person. John Lee Cowell, 28, is the suspect. The plaintiffs allege that Cowell should never have had access to the platform if BART had been doing their job correctly and are asking for both damages and court ordered upgrades in station security.
At the time of the attack Cowell was a recently released ex-con. He attacked both Nia and one of her sisters. Nia did not survive.
BART has refused to comment on the lawsuit. They have, however, made moves to change physical structures to discourage fare evaders (which is technically difficult due to the equipment in use) and also increased their police presence and made other physical changes to increase security.
1 comment:
The death of this young woman is truly a tragedy. The suspect was in and out of mental hospitals for the last several years. However, the law as it is currently written, provides absolute immunity to Bart. This is part of a growing movement to place blame not on the killer, but other parties. People have tried suing gun manufacturers when there are shootings, perhaps they will sue the knife manufacturer in this case.
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