Bus tunnel guards watch as girl beaten in Seattle
<p>In this still frame taken from surveillance video, unarmed security guards in yellow vests stand and watch as a 15-year-old girl is kicked by another 15-year-old-girl as she lies on the ground in a downtown Seattle bus tunnel on Jan. 28. The guards' actions during the attack have prompted a review of the policy that unarmed, civilian guards call police and not try to stop fights or crimes.</p>
SEATTLE (AP) - A 15-year-old girl who was badly beaten and robbed in a Seattle bus tunnel as three unarmed security guards looked on told investigators that she thought the men would protect her.
The statements were revealed in court papers filed Wednesday against the teen girl accused of attacking her and the three young men accused of stealing her purse, phone and iPod. The four were all charged with first-degree robbery.
The victim told a King County sheriff's detective that the group followed her from a nearby department store into the bus tunnel at Westlake Station on Jan. 28, and she deliberately stood next to the three guards.
The guards didn't intervene, though. They have standing orders to "observe and report," so they called police but did nothing else as another 15-year-old girl punched and repeatedly kicked the victim in the head.
Government officials as well as executives at Olympic Security Services Inc., which employs the guards, are reviewing that protocol after the guards' response was caught on surveillance video.
"I went to the security and told them that these kids were trying to jump me," the girl said. "I know that I am about to get jumped and I am hanging around the guards to try and get protection. ... I thought the security guards would defend me."
The girl, who is black, also told the detective that the altercation began at a nearby department store, where some in the group made threatening comments that she had "nice things" and that she acts "white."
Two Seattle police officers noticed the escalating situation and kicked the group out of the Macy's, then brought the girl and her friend to another exit, the victim said. She reported that she asked the officers for an escort to the bus tunnel, just below the department store, but the officers refused.