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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
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Fan Shot Outside NFL Game Sues 49ers

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - A football fan who was shot in a parking lot outside a San Francisco 49ers preseason game sued the team in Federal Court.

Daniel Long sued the Forty Niners Football Co. and its general partner John York. They are the only parties to the complaint.

Long claims he was shot four times while trying to rescue Gabriel Navarrette, who was being beaten in a parking lot after an Aug. 12, 2011, game between the 49ers and Oakland Raiders.

Long claims the 49ers did not search cars entering the parking lot for weapons, though other NFL teams do so, nor did they warn him that the parking lot was not safe.

He claims the 49ers knew that a stabbing had occurred the year before at the same preseason game, and "knew about the probability that weapons would be brought into the parking lot for the 2011 preseason game, that they would not be detected and that they would be used in the parking lot."

The preseason match-up between the NFL's two Bay Area teams had been an annual event until it was canceled indefinitely after the violence at the 2011 game.

Long claims the 49ers also "knew that other NFL teams had successfully implemented a policy to search vehicles entering their parking lots for the purpose of attending a professional football game or for the purpose of tailgating with respect to those games. Approximately 30 to 45 minutes prior to the assault on the plaintiff, defendants knew that a shooting had occurred in one of the Candlestick Park parking lots where the plaintiff had parked his car and that the assailant and gun had not been found."

Several fights broke out during the game, and one patron was severely beaten in a stadium bathroom, according to the complaint and media reports.

Long says in the complaint: "At the conclusion of the game, Gabriel Navarrette was attacked in the Candlestick Park parking lot and was beaten unconscious. Daniel Long attempted to rescue him from the attack and was shot four times."

Long claims that from 1982 to 1988, the 49ers "knew that it was not safe for patrons to attend the 49er/Raiders games. During this time period, 49ers senior management told team members, but not the paying public, that their families should not attend the 49er/Raiders games because it was not that safe to be around. They were advised to sit it out and watch it on television."

But "the 49ers did not inform the NFL that it was advising team members that their families should not attend the Raiders games," Long says in the complaint.

Nor did the team "inform the NFL that even though it was advising team families not to attend, it was not advising the general public not to attend," according to the complaint.

Long claims the 49ers knew in 2010 that the "safety concerns expressed more than 25 years earlier had not abated and had in fact escalated with the stabbing in a parking lot adjacent to Candlestick Park immediately after kickoff of the 2010 49er/Raider game."

He claims the 49ers "had the ability to take reasonable measures to prevent weapons from being brought into the parking [lot] and had the ability to prevent plaintiff's shooting."

Long seeks damages for breach of contract, negligence and liability under the rescue doctrine.

He is represented by Geoffrey Becker with Becker & Becker, of Lafayette, Calif.

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