Victim-blaming in the Freddy Nelson Jr. wrongful death lawsuit
Trial will be live streamed, despite Defendants’ objections
The docket in the wrongful death suit filed by the family of Freddy Nelson Jr. exploded in the last few weeks, as is typical in a case barreling — ill-advisedly — toward trial: 100 filings have been docketed in the last month, including 51 in the last week, and 38 in the last two days.
These filings are dense. Reading one requires having two or three others open simultaneously, for cross-referencing.
One thing is crystal clear: In addition to pointing fingers at each other, the defendants — TMT Development, Cornerstone Security Group, Logan Gimbel, and Lowe’s — want to point the finger at Freddy, his widow, and their family.
Worse, these defendants want to lay blame anywhere/everywhere else while concurrently screaming about their own safety and comfort, in asking the court to disallow live streaming of the trial.
Those requests were denied, and the twelve-day trial begins this morning, broadcast via Courtroom View Network. Let’s go over some of the victim-blaming that is posed to make an ugly appearance:
TMT Development on the coroner’s report
Exactly a month ago, TMT submitted to the court the coroner’s report on Nelson’s death. It stated that the murder victim had some meth in his system when he was gunned down by one of the private security guards TMT contracted to police their shopping center.
Why, exactly, TMT thinks that Nelson’s drug use is relevant we cannot know. The exhibit was simply chucked into the docket, attached to an uninformative one-page declaration, purportedly in support of a reply that does not appear to exist.
Cornerstone on domestic abuse
Last week, Cornerstone submitted to the court a copy of a family abuse prevention petition that widow Kari Nelson had filed in 2019. Cornerstone also included excerpts of depositions that the collective defendants had taken, in October 2023, of witnesses to that domestic abuse.
Read that again: The defendants discovered that Nelson had hurt his wife a few years earlier, and then deposed the witnesses to that violence, so that it could be used in defense of their own conduct, somehow.
I’m certain that jurors are smart enough to know that someone can be the victim of one crime while being the perpetrator of another; and that a person can still be wholly traumatized by their partner’s murder, even if they were abused by them previously.
While seeking to put Nelson’s abuse — of which he was never convicted — in front of the jury, Cornerstone simultaneously sought to limit admission of shooter Logan Gimbel’s murder conviction to the fact that he was convicted, and that it is currently on appeal.
Defendants on homelessness
Each of these corporate defendants, at every available turn, continue to hammer on the Nelsons’ homelessness. It’s clear they are trying to prejudice the judge, and eventually the jury, with broad, ugly strokes on a complicated issue.
For extra credit, prior to Nelson’s murder, TMT bullied Lowe’s into terminating its mutually beneficial pallet removal arrangement with Nelson, by repeatedly — and quite offensively — directing Lowe’s attention to his homelessness.
Lowe’s recently got a favorable ruling regarding their responsibility to police the section of parking lot¹ in which Nelson was murdered, but there’s always the court of public opinion.² Homeless advocates take note.
Cornerstone on prior felony convictions
Cornerstone wants information related to prior felony convictions to be admitted in the case. No, not the prior felony convictions of shooter Gimbel or other defendants, but of Nelson’s sons.
Defendants claim danger
All of the defendants formally opposed the request to have the trial live streamed, citing safety and threats — their fears unlocked by the publication of a damning video in mid-August, seen by at least six million viewers.
The “threats” they’ve received thus far may be ugly, but they’re mostly just questions that will certainly be raised at trial. So, what the defendants are apparently scared of, is publicity.³
Second Amendment advocates Cornerstone did present one unintentionally hilarious argument against the live stream:
No framer of the Oregon Constitution in 1859 could possibly have considered the open court provision to require that each proceeding be archived, in video, for anyone to see for all time, from anywhere in the world, while also being broadcast live. Such technology was inconceivable.
I’m going to let that be the final word for today, because the trial is about to start.
¹ The court ruled that Lowe’s was “not contractually responsible for providing security in the parking lot.”
² See also the emails that Lowe’s employees exchanged regarding the increase in theft and other problems attributed to homeless persons.
³ TMT and Cornerstone both specifically cited my work in their efforts to avoid the live stream; and TMT even sought to change the venue or delay the trial.
