Philadelphia Jury Awards $5.5 million for Family Members of Slain Hahnemann Hospital Parking Lot Attendant

A Philadelphia jury awarded $5.5 million for the family of a man shot to death in 2006 at a Hahnemann University Hospital parking-lot booth in a case that apparantly revealed an appalling lack of security according to the attorneys who tried the case for the surviving family.  After the jury reached a decision in September 2008, the family's attorney advised the media that the security breaches were truly staggering for any institution let alone a hospital.  The victim, a 18 year old Roman Catholic High School graduate and the son of a Philadelphia police officer, was killed after being shot in the chest during an attempted robbery in the lot on Race Street near Broad in Center City.

While spokesmen for the Hospital expressed sympathy for the family after the tragic events, the slain victim's attorney criticized what he found to be the lack of security measures at the parking lot especially considering that an armed robbery had taken place at the same booth just 12 days before his client was murdered.

Evidence presented at trial revealed that Hahnemann failed to make the cashier's booth bulletproof and failed to change the parking lot system to operate unmanned during the unsafe night hours.  Furthermore, although security patrols were increased, evidence showed that the last time was at 7:56 p.m., over two and a half hours before the victim was killed.  In addition, a surveillance camera that overlooked the cashier's booth wasn't even being watched by anyone in security.