K-State student was raped in bathroom of Aggieville bar after lock failed: lawsuit
A former Kansas State University student who was raped in the bathroom of a bar in the Aggieville district of Manhattan, Kansas, in 2018 has filed a lawsuit saying the bar was negligent in its security and failed to adequately train staff.
The woman filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for Kansas, naming as defendants the owners of O’Malley’s bar, at 1210 Moro Street, and the corporation O’Malley’s Inc.
The woman says she was assaulted in the restroom of the bar after the door failed to lock. The suit alleges O’Malley’s did not have adequate security and ignored a clear risk of assault and harassment to female patrons.
Nearly two years later, the assailants have not been found, said the woman’s attorney, Daniel Curry.
“I want these two men to be found and to answer for what they did. I want O’Malley’s to do better,” the woman said in a statement to The Star. “You should be able to be safe at a bar.”
She is asking anyone with information to come forward.
An attorney representing O’Malley’s did not respond to The Star’s request for comment in time for publication. Attempts to reach staff or the owners of the bar Wednesday were unsuccessful.
The Star generally doesn’t name possible victims of sexual assault without their permission.
The assault
According to the lawsuit, the woman, who was a college student at the time, was at O’Malley’s after midnight in February 2018 waiting for a friend to get off work.
She had half a drink before stepping into the bar’s restroom, 20 feet away from the bar, and locking the door behind her.
While she was using the restroom, two men came in behind her. One man raped her while the other pinned her, face-first, against the wall, the suit says.
The men covered her mouth when she screamed and only left the restroom after she kicked back and urinated on one of them, the suit says.
Following the assault, the woman said she called police, who arrived at the bar within 15 minutes.
Before officers gathered evidence, the suit says, O’Malley’s employee’s cleaned the bathroom.
The security cameras at the bar were not working the night of the alleged assault, the suit says.
Riley County Police Capt. Tim Hegarty said the criminal investigation of the woman’s assault is inactive pending new information.
“While it is currently inactive, there is no statue of limitations for rape, and we are always open to the possibility that information may arise which would lead to a resolution of the case,” Hegarty said.
He added that the department has dedicated over 80 hours to the case and used social media to search for the assailants.
Bar security
The night of the assault, the suit says, the bartenders had been drinking and the bathroom door lock was not functional.
The bar was over capacity at the time, meaning bartenders would not be able to see the bathroom door 20 feet across the room.
Although the bar is often near, at or over capacity, the suit says, employees were never trained in patron safety or managing crowds and the bar was not staffed with “competent or trained security.”
“These cases are important for public safety and it’s important that entertainment businesses that are serving alcohol to a young crowd need to have the right safety measures and security measures in place,” Curry said.
These issues, as well as the risk and existence of sexual harassment and physical violence at the bar, is something the owners of O’Malley’s should have been aware of, the suit said.
“Defendants had actual knowledge that, given the nature of their business of serving alcohol to a large number of people in a poorly secured environment for profit, that a sexual assault upon one of their female patrons would be not only foreseeable, but inevitable,” the suit says.
The suit says O’Malley’s failed to take “simple, inexpensive” steps to make the bar safer for its patrons.
The suit asks for $75,000 in compensation as well as attorney’s fee’s. It also asks the court to allow the bar’s owners, Michael Troute and William Porter, to be sued as individuals in addition to the business.
This story was originally published January 22, 2020 at 2:59 PM.
