Girl, 3 men charged in tunnel attack

The 15-year-old girl who was beaten and robbed in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel as security personnel watched said she had headed straight for the guards because she thought they would help her.

"I went to the security and told them that these kids were trying to jump me," the girl wrote in a statement to King County sheriff's investigators. "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."

But the girl was wrong.

In an attack captured by surveillance video, the girl is seen being pummeled and kicked in the head, allegedly by another 15-year-old girl while several males grab the victim's phone, purse and iPod. For much of the attack, two unarmed security guards stand over the victim even as she is being assaulted.

According to the Sheriff's Office and King County Metro, the guards followed policy by not intervening in the Jan. 28 attack. Instead, they alerted transit officials, who summoned police.

The attack has prompted Metro to discuss contract changes with Olympic Security Services, whose guards were in the tunnel during the attack. It also has sparked widespread anger at the guard policy and with the suspects accused of the attack and robbery.

On Wednesday, King County prosecutors charged the alleged assailant, a 15-year-old Seattle girl, and three male friends, ages 18 to 20, with first-degree robbery.

The girl was charged with first-degree robbery rather than second-degree assault because the robbery charge is more serious and allows prosecutors to seek a longer sentence, according to King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office spokesman Dan Donohoe. He said a first-degree-assault charge could not be filed against the girl because the victim did not sustain serious injuries.

The Times is not naming the girl because she has been charged in juvenile court.

Donohoe said she is being charged as a juvenile because of her age and lack of a criminal history.

If convicted, the 15-year-old faces a standard range sentence of about two years in juvenile detention.

Updated, 9:40 a.m.: At her arraignment Thursday morning in King County Juvenile Court, the girl pleaded not guilty to the charge. A judge set her next hearing for Feb. 18.

The girl's mother conceded the fight looked terrible, but said her daughter had in the past been beaten up by the other girl.

If convicted as charged, two of the adult defendants, Latroy D. Hayman, 20, and Dominique L. Whitaker, 18, each face a sentence of 2 ½ years to 3 ½ years in prison. The third adult defendant, Tyrone J. Watson, 18, faces a sentence of three to four years in prison.

According to court documents released Wednesday and a Seattle Police Department report, the victim and a friend had three encounters with the alleged assailant and her friends in Westlake Plaza and Macy's in the hour before the attack in the tunnel. Seattle police separated the groups each time because they were causing a disturbance and ordered them to leave the area or go home, according to the police report.

According to court documents, the victim told sheriff's investigators that she didn't know the members of the group personally, but recognized them as "friends of friends." The victim said the alleged assailant accused her of thinking she was "better than everybody" and acting "white," according to charging documents. The victim and all the suspects are black.

One of the male suspects, Whitaker, told investigators that the victim had pepper-sprayed one of his friends before the tunnel beating, charging documents allege.

The victim said she approached Seattle police, told them the defendants had threatened her and asked them to escort her and her friend into the bus tunnel. She said the police refused.

"When dealing with these kinds of disputes, it's common to separate the parties," said Seattle police spokesman Sgt. Sean Whitcomb. "It isn't always clear who has done what or whether a crime has been committed. In this case, the officers did not believe that the threats rose to the level of a crime and advised the victim and her friend to go home."

According to charging documents, the victim told investigators that she headed straight for the security guards once she went into the tunnel. She said she told them she was in danger.

The girl told investigators one guard seemed concerned and made a call on his radio, but "the other guy was acting like he didn't care."

She was walking behind the guards when the other 15-year-old girl starting hitting her, the victim said.

"I started fighting back and my chest started hurting very bad. I have a potentially fatal heart condition so my instinct was to curl up so she could not hit my chest," the girl told investigators. "I thought I was getting jumped by the whole group because of all the kicks and how fast they were coming."

The girl described feeling that she had "blanked out," charging documents say. When she woke up she said she was dizzy, her vision was blurry and she felt pain everywhere. The girl said she was too upset to talk to security officers after the attack and went outside with her friend's help.

There, she ran into the same two Seattle police officers who had refused to walk her into the tunnel, she told investigators.

"They were trying to calm me down and I was going off on them," she wrote. "I was so pissed and I told them I would be writing a letter and my mom would be getting involved and they would lose their jobs."

When the girl's mother arrived she also confronted the officers, according to the girl's statement.

"My mom was going off on them and they were explaining that there were always fights down there and they can't monitor them all. They were saying that I had so many opportunities to leave the area," the girl wrote.

Whitcomb said told The Associated Press that, "Had these officers known what was to transpire, they probably would have paid for a cab for this victim to be taken safely to her home, but they didn't know. They broke up a couple of disturbances and provided the victim an opportunity to leave the area via bus."

The mother of one of the suspects, who asked not to be named, said the two girls have a long history of fighting each other and each has been victimized by the other.

"I'm not trying to say what anybody did was right. They were all wrong. My son was wrong to even be there," said the woman. "But these two girls used to be good friends until they started dating each other's boyfriends, cheating, saying ugly things about each other on MySpace and stirring things up."

The 15-year-old suspect is scheduled to be arraigned at 8:30 a.m. Thursday in Juvenile Court. She is being held in juvenile detention.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Seattle Times news researchers Miyoko Wolf and Gene Balk contributed to this report.