HOLLY DANKS
An 81-year-old Holocaust survivor is suing TriMet and a former bus driver
for more than $5 million, saying that when the driver yelled at her and
pushed her off his bus it reawakened the memories of Auschwitz.
Rosa Wigmore, who survived the notorious Nazi concentration camp, wants
$3.06 million from Timothy J. Shuey and $2.02 million from the transit
agency. Shuey quit TriMet shortly after the June 27 incident.
The lawsuit says Shuey discriminated against Wigmore by referring to her in
vulgar terms as an immigrant and telling her to "go home from where you came
from" after she complained that he missed her stop.
He then grabbed Wigmore from behind and knocked her to the floor. When Shuey
forced her out the bus' door, she fell to the sidewalk.
Mary Fetsch, TriMet spokeswoman, said Friday that agency officials had not
seen the lawsuit and had no comment. Shuey, 48, could not be located for
comment.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges
personal injury, a violation of civil rights and elder abuse.
"As a direct result of defendants' misconduct, Ms. Wigmore suffered and
endured extreme physical and mental pain and suffering," including a heart
attack, broken ribs and soft-tissue damage, the lawsuit alleges.
"I am still very, very bad," Wigmore said Friday of her health. The
Beaverton woman referred further questions to her attorney.
Co-counsel on the lawsuit is Elden M. Rosenthal, a prominent Portland civil
rights lawyer who 15 years ago won a $12.5 million lawsuit against a
national white supremacist group in the killing of an Ethiopian college
student.
"This is a terrible thing for her," Rosenthal said, declining to comment on
specifics of the lawsuit.
The lawsuit says the bus incident caused "a reopening of the psychic
injuries" Wigmore suffered in Auschwitz.
From 1940 to 1945, more than 1 million people -- most of them Jewish -- died
in the largest of the Nazi concentration camps.
Wigmore, who is Jewish and came from Yugoslavia, carries a concentration
camp tattoo on her arm. She immigrated to the United States after World War
II and became a U.S. citizen in 1968.
Patricia Warford, a Newberg psychologist who specializes in trauma and
stress, said Friday that Wigmore would have been at Auschwitz during a very
impressionable time in her life, in her late teens or early 20s.
"Rough treatment, being pushed and grabbed, the humiliation piece of it were
all part of Auschwitz," Warford said. "It certainly is possible to have a
psychological response to a trigger event, such as being grabbed on a bus.
Whether that happened is up to the jury or court to decide."
Police reports offer this account of the June 27 incident:
Wigmore boarded the eastbound No. 54/56 bus on Southwest Farmington Road
near 99th Avenue and asked Shuey for directions. Unable to understand her
accent, Shuey told her to sit down.
Wigmore, who has ridden the bus routes around her Beaverton home for years,
left her seat on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway near 77th Avenue in
the Raleigh Hills area to tell Shuey he missed her stop. That's when Shuey
began yelling and grabbed her.
According to the lawsuit, Shuey deprived Wigmore of her First Amendment
right to speak without retaliation, her Fourth Amendment right to be free
from unreasonable seizure and her 14th Amendment right to be free from
discrimination based on national origin.
TriMet is to blame, the suit says, for "failing to hire and screen
applicants for the position of bus driver who are psychologically fit to
deal with the public."
The transit agency also failed to train drivers to deal with passengers of
diverse backgrounds, the suit alleges.
Fetsch said Shuey did not have a history of complaints involving anger. She
said customer service, along with safe driving, are TriMet's top concerns.
At the time of the incident, Shuey told police that Wigmore wouldn't leave
him alone and that he "lost it."
In November, Shuey pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor harassment,
and a Washington County Circuit judge sentenced him to two years' probation
and required him to attend anger-management classes.
Holly Danks: 503-221-4377; hollydanks@news.oregonian.com |
|
3 comments:
This is not an accurate account of what happened and Tim has now passed away. Will you please remove this post?
That's not my material this is a reprint from the news article
Look at the video recorded by Trimet’s OWN bus camera and then tell us how this is “not an accurate account”. What possible reason does a person have to “lose it” with an unarmed 77 year old woman?
Post a Comment