The shooting of a student triggers debate over who should pay
The Palm Beach Post
Monday, June 12, 2006

By ANDREW MARRA

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – When the shooting started, Lyntoria Parchment knew to duck. Only she ducked too late.

The 18-year-old and her friend had pulled into the gas station at the worst possible time, just as a gun battle was breaking out. Recognizing the sound, Parchment put her head down by the steering wheel and hoped for the best.

She remembers nothing about the seconds that followed, except that her car struck a gas pump. It was a moment before she realized that she had been hit, that there was now a bullet between her eyes.

The stray bullet spared her life that night in 2003, but it left her right eye blind and disfigured. It lodged so deep in her skull that doctors decided it could not be removed without risky brain surgery.

So it remains there, the source of devastating headaches and psychological torment for the West Palm Beach woman.

The bullet came with a considerable price tag: emergency room bills, therapy bills, prescription drug bills and all the unfathomable costs of a life derailed.

Palm Beach County taxpayers shouldered much of the cost. Who has to pay the rest still is being argued in court.

For almost two years, lawyers and executives have been debating liability and assigning blame. In the fallout, a small-time gas station owner is battling his insurance company, wondering whether he will be able to feed his family when it is all over.

The story of Parchment’s shooting, and the debate about blame and responsibility that followed, illustrates the devastating costs of gun violence not only to the victims but also to people who never knew them before the shots were fired.

The statistics show that gun violence has fallen statewide in the past decade, but that trend has passed over Palm Beach County’s most violent neighborhoods.

Areas of West Palm Beach and Riviera Beach laid claim to two of Florida’s five most violent ZIP codes in 2004, according to a Post analysis of more than 1,400 gunshot injuries treated at Florida hospitals. Although the number of gunshot victims statewide fell from 10 years ago, the number of victims who live in those two ZIP codes - 33407 and 33404 - increased.

At the same time, the health-care system is spending more and more to treat gunshot wounds, even as the number of shootings falls.

Parchment’s wounds never healed. After the shooting, she dropped out of community college, gained weight and became a recluse. She got frequent headaches and could read for only short periods. She was depressed and felt uncomfortable in large groups. She abandoned her ambition to become a nurse.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m the same person since this happened,” said Parchment, now 20.

It happened on Oct. 23, 2003, as Parchment and a friend were pulling into the Majestic gas station, a small fill-up station and convenience store at Australian Avenue and 25th Street in West Palm Beach.

Parchment had graduated from Palm Beach Lakes High School and just started classes at Palm Beach Community College. She and a friend had been studying and stepped out to buy drinks.

As they pulled into the gas station, a car and a pickup truck began firing at each other with 9mm handguns while they sped out of the station. Parchment and her friend ducked when they heard the shooting.

But one of the bullets went through the driver-side window of Parchment’s Honda Accord, striking her in the face.

Then both vehicles sped away before police could arrive.

Parchment feared she would die when she was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center. At the hospital, she asked a doctor whether she would survive. He looked her over and said nothing.

She soon learned she would never see out of her right eye again. And the bullet would never leave her head.

Parchment didn’t know who shot her. No one knew. But someone had to pay.

A year later, she filed a lawsuit against the gas station owner and the owner of the property.

Shootings may be less frequent than a decade ago, but they are costing the state more and more.

Those costs are paid by a variety of sources, but taxpayers take on most of the burden.

In Parchment’s case, the medical bills were covered entirely by the Palm Beach County Health Care District, which local tax dollars fund.

Because the bullet’s position in her skull was so precarious, doctors decided not to remove it. As a result, Parchment’s time in the emergency room at St. Mary’s was less expensive than many such stays. Her attorney estimates the cost at $18,000.

Within days, she was discharged. The health district paid her hospital bills because she had no medical insurance.

That was only the beginning of her troubles, though. She returned home with only one working eye. She woke up every morning thinking someone had a hand over it.

And then there was the pain. Her head hurt, her eye hurt. After being up and about for a few hours, she would have to lie down in a dark room. Her good eye was unaccustomed to the strain. Doctors gave her a pair of special glasses.

“They say I’m always going to have headaches,” Parchment said. “My eyes hurt a lot and my head hurts a lot. It’s real bad pain.”

On Sept. 22, 2004, Parchment’s attorney filed the lawsuit.

Owner worries lawsuit could ruin him

Mohammed Kibria didn’t understand why he was being sued. He did not know Parchment. He had never even seen her before the shooting.

But now blame had been laid at his feet.

The lawsuit contended that Kibria, who owns the Majestic gas station, had failed to provide enough safeguards against shootings and other violent crimes. It levied similar charges against the property owner, Royal Petroleum.

Kibria didn’t pull the trigger, but his insurance company had deep pockets. So he became a target.

Kibria came to South Florida from Bangladesh, where he had worked as a structural engineer. In the United States, he started at the bottom, working behind convenience store counters.

When he had saved enough money, he bought the convenience store at the Majestic gas station. Later, he bought a convenience store at a Texaco station on Belvedere Road.

He spent most of his evenings shuttling between the two stores, assisting the clerks he hired to work the registers. In his spare time, he did occasional work as a building inspector for a West Palm Beach engineering firm.

In doing so, he managed over the years to buy a house in Boynton Beach for his family. He says he has two daughters and one on the way. He is the only provider for them and his parents, who joined him in the United States.

Kibria did not worry about the lawsuit at first. He paid every year for liability insurance. He was covered. At least, that’s what he thought. But he hadn’t read his policy carefully. There was a loophole, and the insurance company had found it.

It turned out his liability policy didn’t cover criminal assaults. Sorry, the company told him, but you’re on your own.

The Majestic station is in the 33407 ZIP code, the third-most violent ZIP code in Florida in terms of gun injuries, according to the Post analysis. The two that top it are in Jacksonville and Miami-Dade County.

In 2004, at least 30 people who lived in that ZIP code were treated at hospitals for gunshot wounds, an increase from 27 a decade earlier. Statewide, the number fell 26 percent.

Parchment’s attorney says Kibria should have known gun violence was a risk at the station.

“If a business owner is aware of danger on his property, he is held to the standards of taking reasonable steps to mitigate those dangers,” Leonel Plasencia said. He said Kibria could have bought security cameras or hired an armed guard.

To Kibria, the accusations were absurd. He felt horrible for Parchment, but he didn’t understand how her injuries were his fault.

“Who has an armed guard?” he said, laughing ruefully. “It is a joke.”

Because his insurance company didn’t cover the shooting, Kibria was forced to pay his legal costs out of his pocket. He estimates he has paid more than $10,000 to date.

The insurance company has asked a federal judge to determine whether it has to cover Kibria’s liability.

Amid the uncertainty, Kibria said he cannot afford to pay a settlement. The lawsuit may ruin him and his best-laid plans for his family.

“If I have to pay something, I’ll have to give this business away,” he said. “It’s going to be pretty hard for me to survive.”

Moving forward despite pain, fears

At the same time, Parchment is plodding forward in a world with less light. After living with her mother for years, she and her boyfriend moved recently to a condominium in the Lake Worth area. She is unemployed but hopes to begin taking community college classes again this summer.

She sits in her living room with the blinds drawn. The sunlight can give her headaches. When she gets tired she puts on her glasses. They ease the strain on her good eye.

She said she is still terrorized by memories of the night of the shooting. She is scared at parties. Scared at clubs. Scared in her car.

And she is especially scared when she finds herself driving along Australian Avenue, past the Majestic gas station.

“I pray the light is always green so I can keep going,” she said.