February 10, 2010 in Region

3 Seattle bus tunnel guards watch brutal beating

The Spokesman-Review

SEATTLE — A 15-year-old girl who was badly beaten in a Seattle bus tunnel as three unarmed security guards looked on told investigators that she thought the men would protect her.

The statements were revealed in court papers filed Wednesday against the teen girl who attacked her and three young men accused of stealing her purse, phone and iPod. The four were all charged with robbery.

The girl told a detective that the group followed her from a nearby department store into the bus tunnel, and she stood next to the three guards thinking they’d protect her.

The guards didn’t intervene, though, because they have standing orders to “observe and report,” but not to try to stop fights or criminal activity. That protocol is now under review after the guards’ response was caught on surveillance video.

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21 comments on this story so far. Add yours!

Coffee on February 10 at 2:40 p.m.
If they would have helped, every bleeding hart lib. would have been demanding there job, and a s***pot full of lawyers would have been lined up to sue them and King county.
jerrysw on February 10 at 3:07 p.m.
Probably conservative guards scared of being sued by some liberal gang members!
Shylock13 on February 10 at 3:56 p.m.
Outrageous! Why would anyone, “guard” or not, stand by and let such an attack happen? There were THREE “guards”—hardly one individual! They all should be terminated immediately. The policy—watch, do nothing, and report—is absurd! What do the guards “guard’? Each other? The idea is to protect the public!!!!!
Liberty_Bell on February 10 at 3:56 p.m.
“King County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart said the guards were right to follow their training.”
The exact same words he said when his deputy beat up the 15 year old in the King County Jail.
And another settlement for clueless, $125,000.00
Deputy Sgt Urquhart, always opens his mouth when the County’s getting sued. hat’s been going on for decades!
misjustice on February 10 at 4:05 p.m.
Unfortunately, this is not as simple as some commenters would like to make it. It has nothing to do with politics or the political cant of the officers involved. It, ultimately, does not even have much to do with the job description of the officers.
What is at play here is a lack of civility, a lack of restraint, and a bent for violence that seems to plague our society. We witness similar stories in our communities daily; bullies and those not held to account that prey on others and physically take what they want from others that are vulnerable. WE, as a society, glorify violence and then pretend shock when an incident like this one happens.
We swagger and threaten, and wage wars on people that never harmed us; and then we are shocked, shocked, I say,about what happened in this story. Violence begets violence. Unless or until we are ready to examine what it is about our Nation that makes violence the solution, that makes violence the path to take to solve conflicts, then we will only see more instances of public beatings, public shootings, public knifings, public assaults.
We have to be the change we want to see in the world. If we want fewer instances like the one in Seattle then we need to find a way, as a community, as a nation, as neighbors, to make violence and the path that it takes us down unacceptable.
Orange on February 10 at 5:03 p.m.
Sad, but in todays world of everyone wanting to sue everyone else, and the media taking incidents like this out of total context and alarming every reader for no reason, the “guards” did exactly as they were ordered. Sound the alarm. That’s it. Don’t blame the guards. Blame the future of our society, who was doing the beating.
sixandseven on February 10 at 5:19 p.m.
Who needs the do nothing guards when there were cameras?
Pat O'Leary on February 10 at 6:11 p.m.
What worthless pieces of garbage. What do these people get paid to do? Stand around and bs with each other? Drink coffee? This is pathetic. Fire them and just have cameras. Maybe if the cops aren’t too busy they will eventually respond.
AndrewBalasa on February 10 at 6:56 p.m.
Forget ‘orders’ and ‘doing what they were trained to do.’ The three guards should be fired following a severe reprimand and perhaps criminal charges. They failed to demonstrate any modicum of physical or moral courage. They failed to intervene on behalf of a 15 year old obviously looking for assistance by someone of authority. Not only that, once she was down on the ground, they failed to protect her from her assailant’s repeated appearances to strike her again. We don’t know what the victim’s actions were prior to this incident, but it doesn’t matter…no one deserves this At what point do you stop hiding behind your ‘jobs’ and start doing what is right? At a minimum, the guards could have used their size to simply shield that girl from a beating.
ajord on February 10 at 8:05 p.m.
The victim should have no trouble finding an attorney who will handle her suit against the municipality on a contingency basis. What kind of moron would a public official have to be to say under these circumstances that the guards were right to follow their training. The guards should have acted like human beings. What Urquhart should have said is that he would recommend arming all of the guards. Do you think that the beating would have happened if the guards had handguns? In Texas, the thugs would have been shot. Not in King County, however. Here—have some Starbucks.
PhiltheBibliophil on February 10 at 9:37 p.m.
I wonder if it had been one of the guards 15 year old daughters? Another pathetic comment on the lack of common sense and American Society in general!
sixandseven on February 10 at 10:04 p.m.
Does this remind anyone of what happened to Otto Zehm?
Think about it.
kelitonmovers on February 10 at 10:40 p.m.
Once, the girl see the guards she should go away from them. But, she stood there and got the beatings and she also lost the ipod, phone and purse. The court should not leave the 3 guards who stealed her items. They should be punished well
Free Online Games.
DavidBray on February 10 at 11:13 p.m.
This is a perfect example of how inane some police depts. can be. When what’s right is ignored in favor of what may save the city some money…the city of Seattle has opened the door to more criminal behavior. King County Sheriff’s Sgt. John Urquhart’s statement is that of a complete idiot. He literally condones the attack with guards standing by! Pure, unadulterated cowardliness. A better law would be one that punished bystanders who refused to help.
Another example of the convoluted thinking of a liberal state and a solid reason to stay out of KIng County. I wouldn’t go there without carrying my own piece because I doubt I’d get any help from “guards” if I needed it.
To misjustice: What are you smoking? You’re a victim in waiting with your philosophical dreamworld. Reality is what it is. The world isn’t going to get any safer for a very long time, if ever. If the psychologists are right…it’ll probably get a lot worse. The future may well hold a choice of dying on your knees or fighting for yourself. Better write your will while you’re still young; before it’s too late.
megd71 on February 11 at 7:33 a.m.
The 2nd Amendment to the Constitution acknowledges the God-given right to defend oneself and, as in this situation, others. I wonder if this would have had a different ending had there been a legally armed citizen close by, willing to step in and do the job of the useless “guards.”
lewis8457 on February 11 at 8:58 a.m.
What good is a guard with no authority? More money going out for nothing.
These 3 guards are cowards in my book. Even following orders you help those in need. Other wise what is the point.
If they cannot get involved then get rid of them, this young girl mistakenly thought they would help. If they weren’t there she would not have made the mistake of siding up to them staying in the attack zone.
suzieQ on February 11 at 10:09 a.m.
I have to wonder if the girl would have been better off without the guards there all together. I mean, had they not been present perhaps she would have kept running and got away no harm done, instead of stopping in hopes the “guards” would protect her. what is the point of their job? security cameras being manned by one person who could call the authorities seems to make more sense if the guards cant do anything but observe and report anyway. very pathetic that three grown men wouldnt step in to do something on their own accord, job asside. such a lack of common sense and hummanity.
Altonumera on February 12 at 3:48 a.m.
What in Heaven’s name are we coming to as a viable society when the instructions to our “Guards” are to do nothing…? I can’t be the only one to make the chilling observation that the female attacker appeared to know beforehand that the “security personnel” would not protect the victim. Is our lawyer-based, lawsuit-infected society become so immobilized by fine print that we can no longer be nobel or even righteous? No one witnessing the horror I saw on that video could fail to be alarmed by what we have become, and no one could miss the message we are sending to the rest of the world.
aeguy on February 12 at 7:02 p.m.
They are freakin’ security guards. How good could their pay be to just stand watch such a monstrosity. You could pay me a million to be a guard and I still would have risked my job for someone else’s life. You hear stories about kids hitting eachother the wrong way in the wrong spot and one ends up dying in the scuffle. Its sad they chose their paycheck over the potential wellbeing of a citizen. The people who beat up the person should all be charged for attempted homocide.
eagleproducer on February 13 at 10:19 a.m.
sixesandsevens: No. This case is not reminiscent of Otto Zehm and I wish you’d stop using every situation involving or not involving police malfeasance to cheapen both his life and his tragic death.
bellebottombluez on February 14 at 1:07 p.m.
liberal/conservative comments are asinined.
Doing what’s right is non-partisan. In this case, it would have been stepping in to prevent a brutal assault, despite orders to ‘observe and report’ only.
Perhaps they’d have lost their jobs, but in the end…my job would have been less important than the loss of my humanity by watching this assault and doing nothing.
In the summer of 1988, I came home one evening to my apartment in Browne’s Addition. I saw a woman and man looked in what appeared to be an embrace. It was only as I exited my car that I could hear her calling for help. I left my son in my car with the doors locked, my neighbors in the apartment building were looking on and had called police, but I went over and pushed the guy away as the woman ran off. While taking statements, it became clear that this was probably a disagreement about drugs. Perhaps I was fortunate not to have been knifed. I’ll never know, but I’m glad that I stood up and didn’t just watch idly as another human was attacked.
Years earlier as a teenager I was at a party and some guy tried to forcibly make me leave with him. Some guys at the party stepped up and helped me. Who knows what would have happened if they hadn’t, but it wouldn’t have ended well.
Perhaps if more people stood up to bullies and did what was RIGHT, we wouldn’t have domestic violence, genocide, and child abuse.