Woman trampled in Lee’s Summit’s Downtown Days stampede sues organizers
A woman who was injured at Lee’s Summit’s Downtown Days festival earlier this month has filed a lawsuit against the event’s organizers, saying she suffered a traumatic brain injury after she was trampled by youths.
The lawsuit was filed in Jackson County Circuit Court on Thursday on behalf of Abby Grizzell, of Lee’s Summit, who attorneys said was bowled over and trampled by a group of youths on June 6. The lawsuit names the festival’s organizing group, Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street, as a defendant.
Attorneys for the woman did not respond to a request for comment, and Barb Grizzell, Abby Grizzell’s mother, declined to comment in a message to The Star.
Donnie Rodgers, executive director for Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street, did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Allegations
Grizzell’s lawsuit said that she had been in line waiting to buy food when a large crowd of youths stampeded in her direction, knocked her to the ground and trampled her. She suffered a traumatic brain injury, and had a concussion and a brain bleed, her attorneys wrote, noting that she incurred “substantial” medical bills and missed work because of her injuries.
Grizzell’s lawsuit seeks damages for her injuries.
Her attorneys wrote that festival organizers were “negligent and careless” for allowing large groups of rowdy youths to gather and for failing to intervene and disperse them once they became a danger to attendees. The lawsuit also faulted organizers for not ensuring attendees did not have weapons, tear gas or bear spray, for allowing attendees to enter the festival from multiple unmonitored points and for not imposing security measures after problems at previous events.
Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street has said it won’t bring Downtown Days back after a series of chaotic incidents marred the event June 6 and in previous years.
In the aftermath, Downtown Lee’s Summit Main Street said it had implemented changes for this year’s event in an effort to get ahead of any problems, including increasing the number of private security officers present, closing the event down earlier and limiting rides to those for younger children.
Canceled event and investigation
On the night of June 6, Lee’s Summit police responded to reports of fights, assaults, property damage and large groups of youths who wouldn’t disperse. In one incident, a child set off bear spray in a crowd; in another, officers recovered a gun after chasing a youth, police said. Videos showed youths running through the event and scuffling with police before officers shooed attendees away.
Lee’s Summit police did not respond to a request for an update on their criminal investigation Friday.
In response to an inquiry about the woman’s injury at the June 16 City Council meeting, Police Chief Travis Forbes declined to comment on the situation and said police were investigating.
“I will say that we have a lot of video,” he said to City Council members. “There were multiple crimes committed that night. If somebody was downtown and committed a crime, I would not want to be in their shoes, because we have a lot of evidence.”
“(Investigators are) combing through hours of evidence to see if we can make some cases on individuals who, frankly, terrorized our community that evening,” he said. “It’s very serious to us.”
