Energy firm convicted in Walnut Creek pipeline blast that killed 5

By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch EMAIL
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 10/24/2013

Reposted to Protect My Sons


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Energy firm convicted in Walnut Creek pipeline blast that killed 5

Published 4:00 am, Friday, September 21, 2007
  • Police officers on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004, cordon off the site of a Tuesday explosion in Walnut Creek, Calif. Two people remained missing Wednesday, after an underground fuel pipeline exploded when it was struck accidentally by a construction crew extending a water line. The two missing were part of a construction team that accidentally hit a fuel pipeline. (AP Photo/San Francisco Chronicle, Eric Luse) MAGS OUT MANDATORY CREDIT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/13/2004#ALL#5star##0422460631 Photo: ERIC LUSE
    Police officers on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2004, cordon off the site of a Tuesday explosion in Walnut Creek, Calif. Two people remained missing Wednesday, after an underground fuel pipeline exploded when it was struck accidentally by a construction crew extending a water line. The two missing were part of a construction team that accidentally hit a fuel pipeline. (AP Photo/San Francisco Chronicle, Eric Luse) MAGS OUT MANDATORY CREDIT Metro#Metro#Chronicle#11/13/2004#ALL#5star##0422460631 Photo: ERIC LUSE

An energy company was convicted Friday of six felony counts and will pay $15 million in connection with a 2004 gasoline pipeline explosion in Walnut Creek that killed five construction workers and injured four others.
Attorneys for KMGP Services Co. Inc., a subsidiary of Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, entered no-contest pleas before Superior Court Judge Terence Bruiniers in Martinez.
The company will pay a $10 million fine in the criminal case, involving violations of the state labor code, and $5 million to end a related civil prosecution, Deputy District AttorneyLon Wixson said.
"We're happy with it," said Wixson, who filed charges against the company Thursday after a lengthy investigation. "We think it's fair. We think it's appropriate."
Tom Bannigan, president of Kinder Morgan's products pipeline business, said in a statement, "We extend our deepest sympathies to the families and individuals affected by this tragic accident. While it can never make up for the losses associated with this incident, we hope that accepting our share of responsibility and reaching these settlements will help bring closure to this matter."
The families of the five men who were killed and others who were injured by the blast have reached separate civil settlements totaling at least $69 million with Kinder Morgan and other companies that were involved in the incident, including Mountain Cascade Inc. of Livermore, a contractor for the East Bay Municipal Utility District.
Only the subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, the nation's largest underground fuel shipper, was criminally charged.
The explosion occurred Nov. 9, 2004, when a Mountain Cascade backhoe operator was installing a water-district main near Newell Avenue and South Broadway and punctured a high-pressure Kinder Morgan pipeline.
The plea agreement signed by Kinder Morgan says the company was the "proximate cause of the puncture of the line and of the deaths and injuries that resulted from the incident." As part of the agreement, the company's employees must fully inspect its pipelines during excavation and conduct an audit of its training procedures.
Kinder Morgan had failed to mark a bend in the Walnut Creek line, according to state workplace safety regulator Cal/OSHA, which found the Houston company primarily at fault and fined it $140,000. The state fire marshal fined Kinder Morgan $500,000. The company has appealed both fines.
Killed in the blast were project foreman Tae Chin "Gene" Im, 47; Javier Ramos, 35; Israel Hernandez, 36; Victor Rodriguez, 26; and Miguel Reyes, 43. The fireball also seriously injured welders Jeremy Knox and Roger Paasch, pipe fitter Miguel Fuentes and crane operator Patrick Farley.
David "Max" Beach, the attorney for Reyes' family, said Friday that Reyes had been killed because the company "did not take safety seriously."
He said Reyes' relatives were grateful that the Kinder Morgan subsidiary had been prosecuted, but added, "It's impossible to say whether the resolution brings any measure of satisfaction to the Reyes family."
John Anton, an Oakland attorney who represented the families of Rodriguez and Hernandez, said, "Considering the misconduct, which was always egregious and is now criminal, and the loss of life that resulted, I can't say that I'm satisfied. I will say that Kinder Morgan, however reluctantly, stepped up to the plate and acknowledged, in both the civil and now the criminal litigation, the horrible blunders that its people made."
Last year, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration's Office of Pipeline Safety and Kinder Morgan agreed that the company would provide system-wide safety upgrades in six Western states. The upgrades were expected to result in as much as $90 million worth of safety improvements.
The $5 million in the civil case will be divided among the county, a state and county prosecutors' fund for worker-safety investigations, the sheriff's office for its use in improving radio communications, the city of Walnut Creek and the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
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BART train kills worker on tracks in Concord 2008

By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch  
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 06/13/2013

Reposted to Protect My Sons 

This accident stands out because like the recent case he was on the wrong tracks.  

BART train kills worker on tracks in Concord

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, October 15, 2008
  • James Strickland, a track inspector for BART, was struck and killed by a train on October 14, 2008 in Concord, Calif. The train was traveling in the opposite direction than it usually would and hit Strickland from behind. Photo: Strickland Family, Courtesy To The Chronicle
    James Strickland, a track inspector for BART, was struck and killed by a train on October 14, 2008 in Concord, Calif. The train was traveling in the opposite direction than it usually would and hit Strickland from behind. Photo: Strickland Family, Courtesy To The Chronicle

Three agencies are trying to determine why a BART inspector walking on tracks in Concord was fatally struck from behind by a train that normally would have been traveling on the opposite track.
At the time of the accident Tuesday between the Concord and Pleasant Hill stations, BART had assigned trains headed in opposite directions on the San Francisco and Pittsburg/Bay Point lines to a shared track. The regular track for trains headed eastbound was closed for routine maintenance, said BART spokesman Linton Johnson.
The BART inspector, 44-year-old James Richard Strickland of Concord, was walking on the active track when he was hit by a train carrying passengers about 9:30 a.m.
"Under normal circumstances, the train would have been coming at him, not behind him," Johnson said.
"The train operator heard a thud and immediately stopped the train," Johnson said. As is routine, the operator was tested for drugs and alcohol and placed on paid administrative leave while the investigations continue.
The incident is under review by Cal/OSHA, BART police and the California Public Utilities Commission, which has jurisdiction over rail mishaps.
"We've got to find out what was happening, what the procedures are for notifying workers that trains are running in reverse direction," said Dean Fryer, spokesman for Cal/OSHA, the state's workplace-safety agency.
"We also want to look at the train operator," he added. "Were there any problems there? Any obstructed views? Any circumstance where he or she wouldn't notice someone was on the track or near the track?"
Under BART protocol, the operations control center was required to alert the train operators that maintenance crews were in the vicinity. However, dispatchers were not required to alert Strickland and his inspection partner that the trains were running on a single track, Johnson said. Inspectors are responsible for assessing the situation themselves to remain safe, he said.
Johnson said investigators are trying to determine what notifications, if any, went out, when and to whom.
The train that struck the worker - a seven-year veteran of the agency that Johnson described as highly experienced and trained - came from behind. Johnson said it can be hard to hear a train approaching. Trains normally travel at about 70 mph in that zone, Johnson said.
The use of a single track is not unusual for BART but requires that extra precautions be taken to assure the trains heading in opposite directions take turns on the affected segment.
Strickland, a structures inspector, had been working in a two-man team when he was struck as he walked on the track. His partner was about 1,500 feet away on the opposite track. Johnson said the inspection work was routine.
Inspectors look for problems with buildings, track ways and aerial structures. Johnson did not know what specifically brought Strickland to the track segment where he was killed.
Strickland's close friend and co-worker, Tom Tetrault, said it was unlikely that Strickland had erred in being on the track.
"He was the safest person I've ever met. He took everything seriously that had to do with safety," said Tetrault, a BART electronics technician. "The only thing I can think of is that the train was in the wrong place or they told him the wrong information about where to be."
Tetrault said Strickland, a jovial native of Arkansas and Texas, joined BART the day before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - and ended up loving the job, which took him all over the Bay Area and kept him outdoors. He began his career with BART as a transit vehicle mechanic. In December 2006 he was promoted to structures inspector.
Strickland was partial to country music and classic cars and had, with Tetrault's help, been restoring a 1951 GMC pickup for his brother-in-law. He was also devoted to Harley-Davidsons; in August he and another friend had ridden through Canada and Sturgis, S.D., home of one of the world's largest motorcycle rallies.
Strickland leaves behind his wife of two years, Linda Strickland, and his 18-year-old son from an earlier marriage, J.T. Strickland. Friends and relatives gathered at Strickland's home Tuesday to grieve.
"I'm really startled about it," said Tetrault. "He was an amazing man. He will be very much missed."
The last time a BART worker was fatally struck by a train was on Jan. 12, 2001. Four other BART workers have been killed since the system began service 36 years ago.
Tuesday's accident happened near the intersection of Minert Road and Chateau Court, between the Concord station and BART's Concord maintenance yard, where the BART tracks are straight and at ground level between barbed-wire fences.
The accident forced BART to shut down service for more than three hours.
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By PETE BENNETT - Contra Costa Watch EMAIL
Phone: 510-460-5641
Posted: 06/13/2013
< 2 >Reposted to Protect My Sons
Arson Murder - Magalia / Paradise CA
Related: Arson / Arson



< 1 >
Walnut Creek CA: Today I watched the NTSB reconstruct the accident scene on the BART Track 10 Decimal 2 (Walnut Creek, CA at Jones Road

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BYNUM v. CITY OF PITTSBURG @FederalGlover

Card image cap

Some quick example text to build on the card title and make up the bulk of the card's content.

Note:
Bernard Bynum was employed at Mainframe Designs Cabinets and Fixtures located at 545 Bliss Ave


BYNUM v. CITY OF PITTSBURGNO. C-83-5664-MHP.

622 F.Supp. 196 (1985)

Dorothy BYNUM, Sylvester Bynum and Dorothy Bynum as Administrator of the Estate of Bernard Bynum, decedent, Plaintiffs,
v.
CITY OF PITTSBURG, Leonard Castiglione, individually and in his capacity as Chief of Police for the City of Pittsburg, Ray Giacomelli and William O'Malley, individually and in his capacity as District Attorney for the County of Contra Costa, Defendants.

United States District Court, N.D. California.

November 12, 1985.

Amended November 27, 1985.

Tito Torres, San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiffs.

James L. Hazard, Sellar, Engleking, Hazard & Snyder, Walnut Creek, Cal., ElizabethB. Hearey, Deputy County Counsel, Martinez, Cal., Jerrold M. Ladar, Stephen W. Sommerhalter, San Francisco, Cal., for defendants.

AMENDED OPINION


PATEL, District Judge.

This case arises out of the shooting death of Bernard Bynum by Ray Giacomelli, a police officer for the City of Pittsburg. The shooting occurred on January 27, 1982. Decedent's surviving heirs, Dorothy and Sylvester Bynum, filed this action on November 22, 1983 alleging that defendants City of Pittsburg ("Pittsburg"), police officer Ray Giacomelli ("Giacomelli"), police chief Leonard Castiglione ("Castiglione"), and district attorney William O'Malley ("O'Malley") had violated their civil rights by performing acts which caused their son to be shot to death by officer Giacomelli. Dorothy Bynum also sues in her capacity as administrator of the decedent's estate.1

Plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint filed on August 6, 1985 contains five causes of action, all based on 42 U.S.C. § 1983. First, plaintiffs allege that defendant Giacomelli acting under color of state law deprived their son of several constitutionally protected rights, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law, the right to be free from excessive force, and the right to be free from battery motivated by racial prejudice. Second, they contend that defendant Castiglione instituted a policy of inadequate police training which caused the death of their son. Third, they claim that defendant Pittsburg encouraged its police department to abuse minorities causing the death of their son. Fourth, they allege that defendants Pittsburg, Castiglione, and O'Malley had a policy of exonerating officers who brutalized or killed minorities and that this policy was a proximate cause of their son's death. Finally, they allege that defendants Pittsburg and O'Malley caused their son's death by failing to prosecute law enforcement officers who brutalized or killed minorities.

Defendants Pittsburg, Giacomelli, and Castiglione filed a motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on August 22, 1985 on the grounds that plaintiffs' claims are barred by a one year statute of limitations and that no constitutional violation is shown in the pleadings. Castiglione also moves to dismiss the second cause of action against him claiming that respondeat superior is an insufficient basis for imposing liability on him. Finally, Pittsburg asks the court to dismiss it from the fifth cause of action since it contains no allegations of wrongdoing on the part of the City. Defendant O'Malley joined in the motion to dismiss on August 23, 1985. In addition to the grounds asserted by the other defendants, O'Malley claims that the plaintiffs have no standing to bring this action, that he is absolutely immune from prosecution, and that plaintiffs are not entitled to the equitable relief that they seek.

The court has considered all of the papers in support of and in opposition to these motions. For the reasons discussed below, the fifth cause of action is dismissed as to defendant City of Pittsburg and the remainder of defendants' motions to dismiss are denied.

I. O'MALLEY'S MOTION TO DISMISS

Defendant O'Malley's motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint is based on several arguments which the court heard and rejected on July 23, 1984. On that date, the court denied O'Malley's motion to dismiss plaintiffs' First Amended Complaint based upon prosecutorial immunity, lack of survival and standing, and failure to state a claim cognizable under § 1983. It also refused to strike plaintiffs' prayer for equitable relief.2 O'Malley's arguments here amount to nothing more than a motion for reconsideration. Since he advances no new arguments, the motion is denied.

The only issue raised by O'Malley that the court must consider here is the claim that plaintiffs' action is barred by a one year statute of limitations. This is discussed below since defendants Pittsburg, Giacomelli, Castiglione also raise this claim.

II. PITTSBURG, GIACOMELLI, AND CASTIGLIONE'S MOTION TO DISMISS

A. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS

Defendants Pittsburg, Giacomelli, and Castiglione ask the court to dismiss this action on statute of limitations grounds in light of the Supreme Court's decision in Wilson v. Garcia, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985). Defendant O'Malley joins in this motion.

In Wilson, the Supreme Court held that state statutes of limitations for personal injury should be applied in § 1983 actions. Id. at 1949. The shooting of plaintiffs' son occurred on January 27, 1982; they filed suit on November 22, 1983. Defendants argue that Wilson should be applied retroactively to bar plaintiffs' causes of action under the one year California statute of limitations for personal injury.3 See Cal. Civ.Proc.Code § 340.

Defendants cite several cases from other circuits for the proposition that Wilson should be applied retroactively. All of the decisions rely upon the test announced in Chevron Oil v. Huson, 404 U.S. 97, 92 S.Ct. 349, 30 L.Ed.2d 296 (1971), to analyze the retroactivity question. In Huson, the Supreme Court held that a decision could be applied nonretroactively if three criteria were met:

First, the decision to be applied nonretroactively must establish a new principle of law, ... by overruling clear past precedent on which litigants may have relied ... Second, it has been stressed that "we must ... weigh the merits and demerits in each case by looking at the prior history of the rule in question, its purpose and effect, and whether retrospective operation will further or retard its operation." ... Finally, we have weighed the inequity imposed by retroactive application....

Id. at 106-07, 92 S.Ct. at 355-56 (citations omitted).

In Smith v. City of Pittsburgh, 764 F.2d 188 (3rd Cir.1985), the court used the Huson test in making its determination to apply Wilson retroactively to the case before it. The court relied heavily on the fact that the Third Circuit did not have a well-established statute of limitations in § 1983 actions prior to Wilson. The first and third prongs of the Huson test were not met since the "application of the [statute of limitations] law had been erratic and inconsistent, without clear precedent on which plaintiff could reasonably rely in waiting to file suit." Id. at 194-95. With respect to the second prong of the Huson test, the court held that "[a]lthough we cannot say that the policies referred to in Wilson v. Garcia militate clearly in favor of retroactive application, neither do they militate against such application." Id. at 196.

In this circuit, by contrast, the Huson test suggests that Wilson should not be applied retroactively.

1. WILSON ANNOUNCED NEW LAW IN THE NINTH CIRCUIT.

Prior to Wilson, "the three-year limitations period in section 338(1) [had] long governed suits against state officialsbrought pursuant to section 1983." Marshall v. Kleppe, 637 F.2d 1217, 1223 (9th Cir.1980). The state of the law regarding the statute of limitations was well-settled in the Ninth Circuit. See Wilson, 105 S.Ct. at 1947 n. 35 (Supreme Court noted that the Ninth Circuit had created uniformity by adopting a uniform characterization of § 1983 actions as claims arising on a statute). Since Wilson announced a new principle of law in the Ninth Circuit, the first prong of the Huson test is met.

2. RETROACTIVE APPLICATION OF WILSON WOULD NOT FURTHER ITS PURPOSES

The Court in Wilson was attempting to promote "federal interests in uniformity, certainty, and the minimization of unnecessary litigation." 105 S.Ct. at 1947. Retroactive application would neither retard nor promote these goals. Therefore, the second prong of the Huson test is inconclusive. Jackson v. City of Bloomfield, 731 F.2d 652, 655 (10th Cir.1984) (en banc) (refusing to apply new statute of limitations retroactively); see also Smith, 764 F.2d at 196.

3. RETROACTIVE APPLICATION OF WILSON WOULD BE INEQUITABLE

As the court noted in Smith, "[w]here a plaintiff could have reasonably waited to file suit under the established prior rule, it would be inequitable to say he had slept on his rights because of a later and unforeseeable Supreme Court decision." 764 F.2d at 196. Prior to Wilson the statute of limitations in actions under § 1983 was three years. Since this case has been pending for almost two years based upon plaintiffs' reasonable reliance on a three year statute of limitations, it would be inequitable to apply Wilsonretroactively.4 Thus, the third prong of the Huson test is met.

Because the Huson test is met, Wilson should not be applied retroactively in this case.5 Accordingly, defendants' motions to dismiss on statute of limitations grounds are denied.

B. FAILURE TO ALLEGE A CONSTITUTIONAL VIOLATION

Defendants Pittsburg, Giacomelli, and Castiglione have also moved to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint on the grounds that it fails to allege a constitutional violation. They argue that the availability of adequate state postdeprivation remedies bars this court's consideration of plaintiffs' § 1983 claims under the rationale of Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981).


Defendants' argument fails in several respects. First, in Hudson v. Palmer, ___ U.S. ___, ___, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3203, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984), the Supreme Court elaborated on its holding in Parratt stating that "postdeprivation remedies do not satisfy due process where a deprivation of property is caused by conduct pursuant to established state procedure, rather than random and unauthorized action." In this case plaintiffs have alleged that defendants acted pursuant to a policy of exoneration; plaintiffs do not allege merely commission of a random and unauthorized act which defendants could not have predicted. Therefore, the rationale of Parratt is inapplicable.

Moreover, even if the shooting death of plaintiffs' son were a random and unauthorized act, plaintiffs might still have an action under § 1983 despite the availability of a state remedy. In Haygood v. Younger, 769 F.2d 1350, 1356-57 (9th Cir.1985) (en banc) (citation omitted), the Ninth Circuit noted that

Parratt and Hudson did not decide, and we do not reach the question, whetherthe availability of some remedial relief in state court might be imposed as a bar to federal relief under § 1983 in the myriad fact situations that might present themselves in other cases against state and local government officials. Parratt and Hudson dealt with relatively minor infractions of prisoners' interests in their personal property, and did not deal with official assaults, batteries or other invasions of personal liberty.

Finally, to the extent that plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint alleges violations of their substantive due process rights the procedural rationale of Parratt is inapplicable. In Parratt the Supreme Court recognized the distinction between procedural and substantive claims when it noted that the case involved only violation of "the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment simpliciter," in contrast to previous § 1983 cases before the Court involving fourth amendment and eighth amendment claims. 451 U.S. at 536, 101 S.Ct. at 1913. Courts in this circuit have also noted this distinction between substantive and procedural due process. See Haygood, at 1354-57 (court applies different analyses to Haygood's eighth amendment and due process claims); Garcia v. County of Los Angeles, 588 F.Supp. 700 (C.D.Cal.1984) (Parrattanalysis does not apply to substantive due process claims). If plaintiffs succeed in proving the allegations contained in their Second Amended Complaint, "defendants' conduct may have been sufficiently outrageous to constitute a violation of substantive due process." Garcia, 588 F.Supp. at 707.

The law of this circuit remains unsettled. In Wakinekona v. Olim, 664 F.2d 708 (9th Cir.1981), rev'd on other grounds, 461 U.S. 238, 103 S.Ct. 1741, 75 L.Ed.2d 813 (1983), the court found a prisoner could assert a protectible liberty interest in certain prison transfer regulations. The prisoner was allowed to assert these under § 1983. However, in another case decided the same year the court applied Parratt and held that a prisoner was not deprived of due process where he not only could pursue state tort claims for injuries suffered at the hands of a guard, but had pursued those remedies. Rutledge v. Arizona Board of Regents,660 F.2d 1345 (9th Cir.1981), aff'd on other grounds sub nom Kush v. Rutledge, 460 U.S. 719, 103 S.Ct. 1483, 75 L.Ed.2d 413 (1983).

Nevertheless, this circuit has recently made it clear that claims of excessive force may still be brought under § 1983 where they are based on Fourth Amendment grounds. Robins v. Harum, 773 F.2d 1004 (9th Cir.1985). Plaintiffs' allegations are grounded on the Fourth as well as the Fourteenth Amendment. The availability of state postdeprivation remedies does not bar Fourth Amendment claims. Id. at 1008-09.

For all of the foregoing reasons, defendants' motion to dismiss for failure to state a constitutional violation is denied.

C. RESPONDEAT SUPERIOR

Defendant Castiglione argues that this court should dismiss plaintiffs' second cause of action against him because respondeat superior is not a basis for imposing § 1983 liability. He cites the Supreme Court's decision in Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), for this proposition. In Monell the Court held that local government entities may be sued under § 1983 only where the alleged deprivation of constitutional rights resulted from the execution or implementation of an official government policy.

The Supreme Court recently elaborated on its decision in Monell in City of Oklahoma v. Tuttle, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985). In Tuttle, the widow of a man shot by a police officer brought a § 1983 action alleging that a policy of inadequate training brought about her husband's death. The trial court allowed the jury in the case to infer a policy of inadequate training from the mere fact that the victim was shot to death. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that "where the policy relied upon is not itself unconstitutional, considerably more proof than the single incident will be necessary in every case to establish both the requisite fault on the part of the municipality, andthe causal connection between the `policy' and the constitutional deprivation." 105 S.Ct. at 2436 (footnotes omitted).

In their complaint, plaintiffs allege more than a single incident; they allege an ongoing policy of inadequate training which caused their son's death and involved the injuries and deaths of other minorities. At this stage of the proceedings the allegations are sufficient to defeat a motion to dismiss. Therefore, Castiglione's motion to dismiss the second cause of action is denied.

D. NO WRONGDOING BY CITY OF PITTSBURG

Defendant City of Pittsburg contends that this court should dismiss the fifth cause of action since it contains no allegation of wrongdoing by the City. Plaintiffs conceded this at oral argument. Therefore, the claim is dismissed as to the City of Pittsburg.

III. CONCLUSION

This court dismisses the fifth cause of action of plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint as to defendant City of Pittsburg. The motions to dismiss are otherwise denied for the reasons stated herein.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

FOOTNOTES

1. For the purposes of this order the court refers to plaintiffs jointly, although certain claims are held only by the administrator.

2. Plaintiffs' Second Amended Complaint does not differ substantively from their First Amended Complaint. The Second Amended Complaint simply adds Dorothy Bynum in her capacity as administrator.

3. Defendants contend that the Supreme Court itself mandated that Wilson be applied retroactively. The Court remanded Springfield Township School District v. Knoll, ___ U.S. ___, 105 S.Ct. 2065, 85 L.Ed.2d 275 (1985), for reconsideration in light of Wilson. It did not, as defendants suggest, tell the court of appeals to apply Wilson retroactively. Moreover, in Wilson, the Court seemed to recognize that there might indeed be cases in which the decision should not be applied retroactively. ___ U.S. at ___, 105 S.Ct. at 1941-42 n. 10 (the Court cites Jackson v. City of Bloomfield, 731 F.2d 652, 655 (10th Cir. 1984) (en banc), a case decided the same day as the circuit opinion in Wilson which refuses to apply the new personal injury statute of limitations retroactively).

4. The court is aware that plaintiffs' former counsel was less than diligent in pursuing this case. However, it was reluctant to penalize plaintiffs for this absent some acquiesence on their part. Plaintiffs obtained new counsel who has been diligent. The equities still balance in plaintiffs' favor.


5. Another district court judge in this Circuit has also suggested that retroactive application of Wilson is inappropriate in the Ninth Circuit. See Estate of Cartwright v. City of Concord, 618 F.Supp. 722(N.D.Cal.1985).
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Black's Body Found Hanging From Tree--Second in 7 Months

The real story is coming:

In the Eighties this was real as ever - there are probably more cases but the police departments were geared up as racists back then. The foot soldiers of the day are commanders of today. You can project where they are today but they've been booted from Walnut Creek Police and what they've done over 30 years will shake the nation and world.

Black's Body Found Hanging From Tree--Second in 7 Months


June 24, 1986|Associated Press

LAFAYETTE, Calif. — The body of a black woman was found this morning hanging from a tree near a bank parking lot about 10 miles from where the body of a black man was found hanging last November.

Contra Costa County sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Wells said trash collectors near Lloyd's Bank of California parking lot found the woman's body at about 7:30 a.m.

He said there was no indication of whether the woman took her own life or was murdered.

"The only thing we know, at this point, is that a black female was found hanging from a tree by some garbage men this morning while they were doing their rounds. At this time, we are conducting an investigation," Wells said.

The hanging was similar to the Nov. 2, 1985, death of Timothy Lee of Berkeley, who was found hanging at the Concord BART station in a controversial case ruled a suicide by police.

Lee's hanging enraged civil rights activists in the east San Francisco Bay Area. Members of Lee's family and the NAACP challenged the police conclusion and conducted a separate investigation.

They noted there had been a racial attack on two black men by men wearing white robes a few hours before Lee died and just a few miles away. The men involved in that apparently unrelated incident were arrested and convicted.
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BART: Lynching or Suicide? A City Is Gripped by Tension



 



Racial Friction in Concord : Lynching or Suicide? A City Is Gripped by Tension

February 11, 1986|MARK A. STEIN | Times Staff Writer

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CONCORD, Calif. — High-rise office towers sprout like asparagus shoots near the Bay Area Rapid Transit depot here, symbols of the transformation of this sleepy working-class San Francisco suburb into a paragon of the post-industrial city.
But that shining reputation has lately been tarnished by allegations of racial disharmony, knifings and murder--a brutal if familiar byproduct, some people here say, of the very urbanization that is putting Concord back on its feet.
The most grisly event occurred last Nov. 2, in a vacant lot near one of the new office towers adjoining the BART station. On that mud-caked piece of land, an off-duty security guard found the body of a young black man hanging from the branch of an old fig tree.
Police ruled the man's death a suicide. But local black leaders and some white residents are convinced that 23-year-old Timothy Charles Lee was lynched--perhaps by a splinter of the Ku Klux Klan.
After studying the circumstances surrounding Lee's death, chapters of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in surrounding communities persuaded the FBI to investigate. They also made Lee's death the focus of a regional NAACP "racial intolerance task force" studying the growth of racist organizations in California.
He was my employee for just three days -
Read The Pleadings
As either a lynching or suicide, Lee's death--coming not 12 hours after a pair of white-robed white men knifed two black teen-agers a few blocks away--has touched off an ugly controversy in what was recently lauded as one of the least stressful cities in the nation.
City officials and a number of civic leaders vigorously deny that racism is more of a problem among Concord's 100,000 residents than in any other mid-sized American city with a relatively small (less than 2%) minority of blacks.
But a number of residents--black and white--disagree.
"There is a definite strain," said Tahnjah Poe, a young black woman who moved out of Concord last October because of the harassment she said she and her son suffered at the hands of some local whites.
"It's not the complacent city that city officials want you to think it is. There is a nasty little undercurrent. Certain parts of Concord are like a hick town, but the city doesn't want anyone to know about it."
That assessment is shared by others, such as William Callison, a white man who told police he received an anonymous threatening telephone call after he went to the FBI and challenged the coroner's conclusion that Lee had committed suicide.
"It's a place where the city meets the country," he said. "You have some very rural-type people, and then you have people coming out from the big city. There's friction; some people who are unable to adjust, to put it politely."
'A Lot of Racism'
He paused, then put it more bluntly: "There's a lot of racism in Concord. It's not right on the surface but it's not too deeply buried, either."
Hawley Holmes, staff organizer for the city's 2-month-old Human Relations Subcommittee, acknowledged that "certain levels of socioeconomic strata" are responsible for many of the city's racial incidents.
She hastened to add that the city thinks there is no evidence of activity by the klan or any other organized hate group and no reason to doubt a conclusion of suicide in the case of Timothy Lee.
The suspects in the Nov. 2 stabbings that preceded Lee's death contend that their white robes, with accurate Klan markings, were merely costumes worn to a Halloween party. The existence of such a party has not been established.
Contra Costa County has a history of sporadic racial incidents, although it has seen fewer klan-related events than San Bernardino County, the San Joaquin Valley or other areas in the state, according to the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith.
However, even those incidents that did occur--vandalism, harassing phone calls, taunts and broken windows--drew little public notice until after the incidents of Nov. 2.
Had Won Study Grant
Lee had left his San Francisco job that day happy and hopeful, friends and co-workers said. He worked part time in a fabric design store while taking classes at the San Francisco Academy of Art; he had recently won a grant to study fashion design in Italy.
Friends speculate that after leaving work, Lee visited several bars in town, a position supported by the .13% level of alcohol later found in his blood. (A level of .10% is the legal criterion for drunk driving.) After socializing for several hours, Lee boarded a BART train for the 15-mile ride home to Berkeley.
On the train, however, he fell asleep and missed his stop. He did not awaken until 1 a.m., when the train reached the end of the line, 25 miles down the track in Concord. He then discovered that he had missed the final train of the night back to Berkeley. He was stranded.
Lee relayed this story to several friends he called in a fruitless attempt to find someone with a car who could pick him up. It was the last time any of them would hear from him.

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