A truck driver who was shot while waiting to deliver his load is suing the Oakland Coliseum for their refusal to allow him to safely park on stadium grounds.
73-year-old Jerry Lloyd Matson arrived at the Oakland Coliseum on December 15th, 2015, the night before he was scheduled to deliver a generator for a football game. Coliseum guards refused to allow him to park on stadium grounds for the night, instead directing him to a “high crime area” off stadium property.
Matson complied with the guards’ orders and left the area. He parked and went to sleep at the recommend location, on the west side of Interstate 880.
According to court documents, he woke up during the middle of the night when a man shattered his driver’s side window. After jumping up to confront the intruder, he was shot in the abdomen.
“My Dad was sleeping in his Semi when a man ‘rocked the cab’ of his truck to see if an alarm would go off before breaking out the driver’s side window. My Dad then woke and jumped up and the man shot him in the stomach with a .45 caliber gun,” his daughter told reporters after the incident.
Matson had previously been allowed to sleep in the Coliseum parking lot and “reasonably relied” on safely parking in the lot. Their refusal “negligently exposed him to danger,” the lawsuit states.
“Mr. Matson was not able to safely spend the night in the parking lot. It’s a very preventable incident that we believe was caused by the coliseum authority’s negligence,” his lawyer, Nick Casper, said.
Matson was in a hospital for a month and underwent three surgeries. He was unable to return to work for a year after the incident. He has recently started working again and is seeking lost wages and reimbursement for hospital and medical expenses.