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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Family of transit worker slain in mass shooting files suit

Lars Kepler Lane lost his life a year ago in the worst mass shooting in San Francisco Bay Area history.

SAN JOSE, Calif. (CN) — Amid a national reckoning with yet another horrific mass shooting, the family of a transportation worker in the San Jose, California, area who was one of nine people killed by a disaffected co-worker, filed a wrongful death suit Thursday in Santa Clara County Superior Court. 

The family of Lars Kepler Lane, known as “Kep” to his friends and family, claim the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA), the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office and Universal Protection Service, a private security firm, failed to stop the disgruntled gunman from perpetrating the worst mass shooting in Bay Area history. 

“From VTA to the Sheriff to the security company, too many people failed to do their jobs, and my family has been left to pick up the pieces," said Vicki Lane, widow of Lars Kepler Lane. "We are heartbroken, but we remain hopeful that this lawsuit will force these organizations to make changes that will prevent other families from suffering like we have."

The family filed their lawsuit on the one-year anniversary of the shooting that took place on May 26, 2021, in the transportation authority’s Guadalupe Division, a railyard near the Civic Center close to downtown San Jose. 

Their suit also comes as officials begin to question whether police in Uvalde, Texas — where 19 children and two teachers were killed by a single gunman in the nation's latest tragic school shooting — responded with enough immediacy to the situation. 

The political policy response to mass shootings has become predictably polarized, with Democrats demanding stricter gun control measures and Republicans deflecting those demands with claims that the true problems are related to mental health and other cultural problems. 

Litigation responses like the one filed Thursday have typically focused on aspects of the management of events prior to and during mass shootings — the failure to take seriously the unstable and violent behavior of the individuals in advance of the incident and a faulty response by law enforcement as the incident unfolds. 

The lawsuit filed by the family of Lane, who was 63 years old when he was killed by a disgruntled employee at the transportation authority, touched on both subjects. 

According to the family, the transportation authority should have fired the man who would later go on to shoot his fellow employees, saying he displayed a pattern of unstable behavior and got into several altercations with co-workers that led several to raise concerns he was capable of the kind of violence he eventually perpetuated. 

“By failing to act, VTA gave a man with known and dangerous propensities access to 379 employees at the yard,” said Eval Silva, an attorney for the Lane family. “Nine of them are dead as a result.” 

The family's complaint also notes the transportation authority contracted with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office for $50 million to provide security in concert with Universal Protection Service, a private security firm that has since been acquired by Allied Universal. 

“Negligent, lazy and fake security is more dangerous than no security at all because it provides a false sense of safety,” said Nick Rowley, attorney and co-founder of Trial Lawyers for Justice. “The tragedy that occurred one year ago today is a consequence of lazy, negligent and fake security.” 

Lane's family claims both entities failed to follow basic protocol and allowed the shooter to circumvent access points with a suitcase full of guns. They say both entities failed to maintain weapons detection systems that would have prevented the shooting. 

“The shooter was able to walk right past a Universal Protection Service guard with a duffel bag filled with at least 3 semiautomatic handguns and 32 high-capacity magazines with enough ammunition to kill every single person at the VTA yard that morning,” said Dan Schaar, another family attorney. 

The gunman set fire to his own house on the morning of the shooting to create a diversion and went to the rail yard during the busiest time of day for the VTA, when the night shift workers were clocking out and the morning shift workers were arriving. 

He used high-capacity handguns and appeared to target his victims while sparing others fleeing the scene. According to multiple reports, the first call was placed at 6:33 a.m. and the gunman killed himself approximately 10 mintues later at 6:43 a.m. as police closed in on his location in a railyard building. 

The gunman’s wife described her husband as having anger issues and often expressed resentment toward his co-workers and managers for unfair work assignments, but the exact motive remains unclear. 

Lane's family seeks general and special damages.

Neither the VTA, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office nor Allied Universal responded to emails seeking comment by press time.

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Categories / Civil Rights, Government, Regional

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