Target has been hit with a pair of lawsuits claiming negligence after a 9-year-old boy and a woman were brutally stabbed by a homeless man in a Los Angeles store last year.
The attack took place in November when the vagrant grabbed a large knife off the shelf at a Target in Downtown Los Angeles and stabbed Brayden Medina, 9, and 25-year-old Joo Hye Song.
The bloody rampage came to an end when an armed guard shot the homeless man, who later died of his injuries.
More than four months after the attack, both Song and Medina’s parents have filed separate lawsuits against Target.
The suits claim Target should not have had knives in an open display case for anyone to take, and that security did not act quickly enough to stop the violence.
The twin complaints also name Brookfield Properties and Watermark Security Group as defendants, reported CBS News.
“Despite knowing that [Downtown LA] was seeing an uptick in crime and homelessness, as evidenced, in part, by Target employing an armed security guard to keep the store safe, on the evening of November 15, 2022, a deranged homeless man walked freely into the store, grabbed a butcher knife with a 9-inch blade easily off a shelf and proceeded to brutally attack not just one customer but two customers before he was belatedly shot by the security guard,” one of the suits states.
The attacker, who has not been named, first randomly approached Brayden and told the child he was going to “stab and kill him,” LAPD Chief Michael Moore said at the time.
The boy was at the store with his mom but had become separated from her at the time. He attempted to get away from the knife-wielding maniac, but the man stabbed him in the back of the shoulder.
The attacker then confronted a group of women and stabbed Song, a South Korean national, “brutally” in the chest, according to police.
Some bystanders pulled the bleeding victim into the pharmacy area and shut the gate to protect her.
An armed Target security guard eventually cornered the suspect at the front of the store and fatally shot him.
According to the lawsuit filed by Brayden’s parents, the grade-schooler suffered “grave and life-changing injuries” in the attack and spent more than a month in the hospital.
“Neither the armed security guard nor anyone working at the store came to the boy’s (or his mother’s) rescue before it was too late,” the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit also notes that the knives being sold at the LA Target store are now locked behind away, which is “a safety measure that should’ve been in place the whole time,” according to reporting by Fox 11 Los Angeles.
Both lawsuits filed against Target and its co-defendants claim negligence and premises liability, and Medina’s complaint also alleges intentional infliction of emotional distress.