MAX victim won’t sue Gresham

Sandy resident Laurie Chilcote isn't bitter

By Mara Stine

The Gresham Outlook, Mar 6, 2010 (10 Reader comments)

file photo

Laurie Chilcote sits with his sister Caren Topliff soon after being attacked after stepping off a MAX train.

A lawsuit filed against the city of Gresham by a Sandy man who was savagely beaten with a baseball bat at a local light rail station is being dismissed, said the city’s attorney.

Laurie L. Chilcote, 74, filed suit against Gresham and TriMet, the region’s public transportation agency, seeking $441,000 for medical expenses, pain and suffering.

He contended that better security could have prevented the attack at the Gresham Transit Center at Northeast Eighth Street and Kelly Avenue on Nov. 3, 2007.

Chilcote, a school volunteer, was getting off an eastbound MAX train at the transit center when a group of young men shoved him out of the doorway.

Chilcote, then 71, chastised the boys, telling them their mothers should be ashamed at how they treat others. One young man opened his coat to reveal a baseball bat and said, “My mother gave me this equalizer.”

After Chilcote got off the train, the boy followed him, attacking him from behind with the bat. Chilcote, who suffered traumatic brain injuries and partial paralysis due to the blows to his head, was hospitalized for months.

His assailant, Abel Chavez-Garcia, a 15-year-old Southside gang member in the country illegally, was sentenced in June 2008 to nine-and-a-half years in prison.

In January, TriMet settled with Chilcote for $75,000. Of that, he will receive only about $40,000, with the rest going to his health insurance provider, social agencies for reimbursement of services and his attorney, Larry Sokol, who cut his fee by 60 percent.

The attack caused Chilcote to become the well-publicized face of TriMet’s crime and public safety problems on the MAX line. TriMet has since improved safety, increasing police patrols and fare inspections on the train.

As for the suit against the city of Gresham, City Attorney David Ris said the city did not make a settlement offer to Chilcote during a mid-January court hearing.

“We didn’t do anything wrong, other than not have the resources we’d have liked to, to provide law enforcement,” Ris said.

Chilcote had 30 days to respond to re-activate the case but didn’t.

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