Black man awaiting kidney transplant sued hospital after he was beaten by security guards who profiled and wrongly accused him of casing parking lot

Daughter filed lawsuit seeking justice for dad’s arrest at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, MO. while he was awaiting a kidney patient

Hughie Robinson reportedly, had completed a futile four-day wait or a matching donor organ at BJC when he was attacked by security guards

Robinson’s daughter Chelsea is pursuing the lawsuit her father filed against the hospital before he died some months later

The 52-year-old suffering from end-stage renal failure was in the hospital to receive a donor kidney that never came

Checking out on April 10, 2021, he reportedly forgot his wallet in his room

Hospital staff called him to inform him he forgot his wallet and he returned to the hospital He was instructed to parkin a different parking garage than he normally did

Having retrieved the wallet Robinson could not find his Buick, and reported to the helpdesk before he went back to search with the assistance of a security guard

He roamed around the garage when three security guards allegedly became suspicious and tackled him

Hospital surveillance footage show guards manhandle the patient to an interrogation room where they warned him never to come back to the hospital, even though he was receiving treatment

Robinson’s daughter is now suing Barnes-Jewish Hospital staff

The guards apparently suspected that Robinson was casing the garage, looking to steal cars

They never asked him for the parking garage ticket he had in his pocket

They didn’t notice that he was wearing a patient bracelet, from his just completed four-day stay, either

Hospital previously tried, unsuccessfully, to have the case dismissed

They also previously sought a protective order to keep the videos out of the public eye, which the judge initially granted, then overturned after realizing that neither video shows identifiable images of other patients 

The lawsuit filed by a gravely ill Missouri man, who was profiled beaten and detained by hospital security at the institution where he was seeking relief, has been taken over by the family after the victim died months after, before the case could be prosecuted.

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Click to watch video of Black man awaiting kidney transplant being tackled by hospital security

Hughie Robinson, a frail black man awaiting a kidney transplant was detained and beaten by hospital security guards who mistook him for a car thief, it’s claimed.  
Robinson, 52, had just been sent home from Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis, Missouri, in April 2021 for a planned transplant that failed to happen, when he was allegedly attacked by security guards.
He left his wallet and was contacted by staff who asked him to return and park his Buick in a different garage to the one he usually used, according to a lawsuit filed by his daughter Chelsea Robinson.  Robinson did so, but when it was time to go home, forgot where he’d parked, and wandered back to the other garage he’d previously parked, the suit claims. 
Robinson, who died earlier this year, before he could receive the transplant, then went to the front desk to ask for help.

Robinson was escorted around the parking lot by a security guard, but they still could not locate his car. Eventually, the St Louis Post-Dispatch reports, he caught the attention of some of the security guards at the hospital, which is part of Washington University.
According to the lawsuit, those guards profiled the frail looking black man and immediately concluded that he was casing the garage and looking to steal cars – They never asked Robinson for his parking garage ticket and did not seem to notice he was wearing a patient bracelet, the Post-Dispatch reports, before they attacked him.

Thereafter Robinson’s family claims in their lawsuit against the Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St Louis, Missouri, the security guards assaulted and handcuffed him – when he was only searching for the spot where he’d parked his car in the unfamiliar garage after a four-day stay at the hospital for kidney treatment that never happened.
The altercation was caught on surveillance cameras.
Since suing last year, Hughie Robinson has died of his illness. His daughter Chelsea Robinson will now be representing him in the lawsuit against Barnes-Jewish Hospital for assault, battery, and false imprisonment.

Footage from the hospital surveillance camera’s showed disquieting sequence of the armed guards charging at Robinson and forcing him to the ground. Despite his parking garage ticket and patient bracelet, they accuse him of looking to steal cars. Ultimately the group of security guards manhandle the man to an interrogation room where they assault him before telling him not to return to the hospital.

The lawsuit states that ‘While Hughie was continuing to look for his Buick, several of the Defendant’s security guards, including the guard who had earlier been assigned to help Hughie locate his car, approached Hughie,’ a lawsuit filed by his daughter, Chelsea, against the hospital in June 2021 reads.
‘Hughie asked “What did I do?”
‘The guards did not answer.
‘Instead, one guard grabbed Hughie’s shoulder and arm forcefully in the arm where Hughie’s arm was tender from the port. Another of Defendant’s guards tackled Hughie.
‘Both guards began to beat Hughie.
‘A third guard then jumped on top of Hughie. 
‘Hughie cried out that the guards were hurting him. At least one of the guards responded “Good.”
‘The guards then forced Hughie into a pair of handcuffs.’
The entire altercation was recorded on surveillance footage, the Post-Dispatch reports, and another video is said to show that the three guards took him into an interrogation room, where they questioned him about what he was doing in the garage.

After the guards “tackled and beat” Robinson, the complaint said, “Barnes kept Hughie handcuffed in an interrogation chamber in the basement of the hospital. In this windowless room, one of the Barnes guards, a tall, heavy-set man with a buzz cut, smashed Hughie’s head into the wall with his forearm.”
In surveillance footage of the interrogation room, two guards beat Robinson and he cried out that they were hurting him. One of them replied, “Good.”
Even after the staff discovered that Robinson was a patient instead of a car thief, they mocked him for driving an older Buick, according to the lawsuit. They threatened that if he was ever “anywhere on the property again,” they would “do this whole thing again.”

‘If one of my officers, or WashU officers see you back on this property again, we’re going to do this whole thing again, ’cause you ain’t supposed to be here.
 ‘You cool with that?’ the officer asked, according to the suit. ‘Don’t come back.’
But as Robinson was continuing to receive treatment for stage four kidney failure, he would have to return to the hospital.
His daughter Chelsea says the encounter left him fearful of returning, and is now suing over the distress she says WashU staff inflicted on her father during his final months.  
To be safe he would often call his attorney, Rick Voytas, to accompany him on his trips. 
“I already knew he was in pain because of the whole dialysis thing, but he most definitely was in a lot more pain after that incident happened,” Chelsea said.
“They really messed him up.” “It traumatized him,” Chelsea said.
“I’ve always known him as the tough cookie, you know, he’s the man of the house. Of course he would push and keep moving on. But you know, I’m his daughter—you know those things. You can tell when the person you care about the most is sad.”

The incident is said to have occurred as Robinson was suffering from stage four renal failure – from which he would later die according to his daughter.
Robinson found out on April 7, 2021 that he was second in line for a possible kidney transplant, and posted on Facebook the next day: ‘Yes they finally called me. If my kidney transplant [goes well], no more dialysis.’ Robinson added that he was ‘happy, nervous [and] scared’ and hoped everything would ‘go right this last time.’
He then drove to the hospital and parked in the garage at Kingshighway Boulevard near Interstate-40 and checked himself in. Robinson spent four days in a weakened state, drugged and prepared for the transplant, which never happened for some reason.

With the donor kidney still not available, by April 13, Robinson updated his Facebook friends that the transplant was prolonged because they could not find a match.
However, leaving for home, he forgot his wallet in his room and had to return for his property after a nurse called with the information.
Hospital personnel told him to park in the garage on Euclid and Forest Park Avenues, different from the parking he was familiar with. After retrieving his wallet from the room, he started walking back to the Kingshighway garage where he normally parked, but could not find his Buick.
Robinson allegedly enlisted the help of the front desk and a security guard to locate his car even before they became suspicious.

On Facebook, he wrote: ‘Check this out, after I left the hospital, I forgot what part of my car at in the garage.
‘I’m walking through the garage looking for my car, I was suspicious, the police came. I’m just at the hospital, you know, it’s crazy.
‘And also one more thing, I’m in the office in the back room at Barnes hospital handcuffed for no reason except being profiled and lied on.’
He said he was finally released when one of the security guards received a phone call. 

His daughter, Chelsea, is now suing BJC Health for the incident, alleging that the incidents captured in the videos broke her heart.
‘He was just standing there, not doing anything,’ she said, when the guards confronted him.
‘Anybody with common sense can see what happened,’ she added. ‘I just want justice for my father.’
The hospital, who have previously tried to dismiss the case and are now trying to strike certain allegations from the lawsuit.
They also previously sought a protective order to keep the videos out of the public eye, which St Louis Circuit Court Judge Joan Moriarty initially granted, but overturned when she realized that the two videos did not show any other identifiable images of patients.