Richmond Victim Describes Savage Attack By Mob Of Teens
RICHMOND (KPIX 5) – The victim of a brutal assault by a group of teens near the Richmond BART station Thursday morning on Friday talked to KPIX 5 about the frightening ordeal.
The vicious attack was witnessed by the mayor of Richmond, who called 911.
A day after the beating, 30-year-old Landon Sims can't see out of his right eye. His upper lip is swollen and he has stitches above his eyebrow.
"I can't feel my face," said Sims.
He also suffered a possible concussion.
"It's like a pain in my brain, all over this side," explained Sims.
The mob attack happened Thursday morning at around 11 a.m. in front of the Richmond BART station.
Sims had just gotten off work and was about to take BART to visit his grandparents.
He says there was no interaction or apparent reason behind the attack. A dozen teens suddenly surrounded him in a circle. At first he thought they wanted to rob him.
"12 guys coming at you, I'm trying to run away from the situation," said Sims. "So the guy tripped me and I ended up hitting the ground. I don't remember anything from there."
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He heard from police that while he was unconscious, the group repeated kicked him in the head in front of a busy station.
"I was getting kicked in the head for 6 to 10 minutes," said Sims. "They didn't take anything. I don't know if this was a gang initiation."
Richmond Mayor Tom Butt witnessed the tail end of the attack as he arrived at the station to take BART to San Francisco.
"Then I saw a woman there screaming at them, 'Get out of here! Stop! Stop!'" said Butt. "I saw one of them run back when he was already on the ground and kick him in the head."
Butts took a photo of two women treating Sims after the beating stopped.
"His whole face was bloody," said Butt. "He was covered in blood."
The Mayor said a total of three Good Samaritians came to aid the victim.
Sims doesn't remember any of it. He only remembers waking up in the hospital. He said he hopes to get a chance to thank those who helped him.
"I appreciate them. I just want to say thank you for saving my life," said Sims.
When the mayor called 911, he was confronted with questions over jurisdiction from the dispatcher.
"I said, 'Is this RPD?' and they said 'Yes.' So I went ahead and started telling them about it, explained Butt. "And they said 'Oh, we've got to transfer you to BART.' And I had to do it all over again with BART."
But BART says the assault was a case for the Richmond police because it technically happened off BART property.
However, the proximity of the attack to the station is giving the mayor concerns about BART security. He said there was no station agent in the booth.
He also snapped a photo of BART employees sitting in a work truck nearby whom he said "appeared uninterested."
"I would not want to be put in a serious security situation in that station," said Butt. "Because nobody's there. Nobody's going to help you."
A BART spokesman says he has no information on what individual employers were doing at the time.
By the time police arrived, the suspects were all gone. There is a surveillance camera at the station, but police haven't said if the camera captured the suspects.
Butts was also disconcerted by what he saw when he returned to Richmond Thursday afternoon.
"When I came back from SF, it was around 4:30. There was still nobody in the station agent office," said Butts. "And then I walked up to the plaza, and this big pool of blood was still there from the guy. You know, I thought, 'Geez, can't somebody clean this up?' You know that whole BART plaza and station is a dump anyway. So I was really frustrated."
BART police later determined the attack happened in front of the station, so authorities forwarded the case to the Richmond Police Department as it fell in their jurisdiction.
BART police insist the system is safe despite other recent mob attacks and robberies.
"We have over 400,000 passengers every day, and again, a majority of them make it to their destination without any incidents at all," said BART Deputy Chief Lance Haight.
So far, there have been no arrests in the assault.
