Man seriously injured in 2019 bus shelter crash sues driver
(KSTP)
The driver who crashed his van into a bus shelter, injuring five people in July 2019, is now being sued by one of the victims.
George Reeves Jensen and his company, the Jensen Family Limited Partnership, are named as defendants in a lawsuit filed late last week by Richard Harrison Smith.
Smith was one of five people injured when Jensen drove his company’s conversion van into the bus shelter in north Minneapolis.
Jensen initially tried to plead guilty to five counts of criminal vehicular operation but was later found incompetent to stand trial.
At the time, prosecutors said Jensen was circling the area before he clipped a bus and then hit the shelter at the corner of Lyndale and Broadway avenues.
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In the lawsuit, Jensen is accused of deliberately driving the van into the shelter after he was turned down by several women who he had tried to “pick up.”
It states Jensen was aware that the area was known for propositioning sex workers and that he had been coming around the bus shelter for about three years.
On July 9, 2019, Jensen “drove the van into the shelter, pursuing the women who turned him down,” according to the complaint.
Jensen’s attorney did not respond to requests for comment.
In a court filing, they denied the allegation that Jensen was trying to pick up women and that he had handed money out his window in the past to help people in need.
They also denied that Jensen’s conduct was intentional when he crashed into the bus shelter.
Several people were pinned beneath the van, including Smith.
The lawsuit states Smith suffered multiple pelvic, spinal, and rib fractures that required several surgeries resulting in more than $600,000 in medical expenses.