The Oregonian | By Aimee Green | October 22, 2024
The estate of a MAX commuter who was on his way to his Gresham home from downtown Portland when he was stabbed to death by a stranger who was reportedly hallucinating filed a $1.66 million lawsuit Tuesday against TriMet.
The suit over the death of 51-year-old Michael Matthew Brady faults TriMet for allegedly failing to provide adequate security, failing to staff adequate mobile crisis teams to deter violence and failing to warn riders of their risks of being assaulted or murdered on or near MAX trains.
“Had TriMet provided adequate security measures and personnel on the MAX train Michael Brady boarded on March 29, 2024, Michael Brady would have safely arrived at home to have dinner with his wife and son,” the lawsuit claims.
TriMet declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the pending litigation.
Police say Brady’s accused killer, 51-year-old Shondel Larkin, boarded the train in the Goose Hollow neighborhood before Brady got on within a few stops. TriMet surveillance video showed the two had no interaction with each other and Larkin told police he heard voices that made him believe Brady was going to kill him, according to court papers filed by the prosecution in the murder case against Larkin.
Police said that as the train approached Northeast 82nd Avenue and Halsey Street, Larkin stabbed Brady with a large butcher-style kitchen knife in the shoulder, abdomen and back as traumatized passengers watched. Shortly after his death, his wife, Nora Brady, described her husband as “a great human being” and “a loving father of a 6-year-old boy.”
The stabbing was one in a string of violent attacks on MAX this year and last. Victims included two Black teens who were stabbed on a train by a man who yelled a racist slur at them, an elderly man whose ear was bitten off on a MAX platform by a man in mental health crisis, a fatal stabbing on a MAX platform on Christmas Eve and a commuter who survived after being shoved in front of a moving train by a man who’d been acting erratically.
“TriMet, through its board members and senior management, had knowledge that dangerous individuals prone to violence were presenting serious safety concerns on its MAX trains,” the suit states.
A TriMet survey earlier this year found about half of its riders fear for their safety on buses and even fewer feel secure on MAX trains, with the No. 1 reason being other passengers’ behaviors. TriMet said incidents on its trains, buses and platforms reflect greater societal struggles with homelessness and drug use, but that the agency has doubled safety and security personnel since 2021 and this month it started installing security hotline phones in red towers.
The suit was filed by Portland attorney Michael Fuller in Multnomah County Circuit Court.
