Shelby Lynn Elston walked into the Rose Bowl ready for an unforgettable night of Rüfüs Du Sol’s music with her fiancé. She left with a black eye and multiple lacerations after she was knocked unconscious in a brutal attack by a fellow concertgoer.
Now, she is suing the venue for the injuries she suffered at the Aug. 16 show, which she alleges were enabled by inadequate security.
On Wednesday, Elston and fiancé Cain Thomas Stephens Webb, who was also injured during the attack, filed a personal injury complaint in L.A. County Superior Court against the Rose Bowl Operating Company and the alleged attacker Julio Cesar Lopez Zavala. Pasadena city spokesperson Lisa Derderian said the stadium is unable to comment on pending litigation.
Zavala, 23, was arrested by Pasadena police on Aug. 21 and pleaded not guilty to two counts of felony assault on Aug. 25, according to court records. The attorney representing him in the criminal case did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the civil suit.
A video of the violent attack went viral following the concert. It shows a man knocking Elston to the ground and repeatedly throwing punches at her while other attendees try to pull him back.
The attack went on for several minutes without any security guards intervening to protect Elston and Webb from Zavala, which the complaint alleges was a substantial factor in the injuries they suffered.
At one point during the attack, Elston stopped breathing, which may have caused neurological injuries, according to her attorney Andrew Talebi. Webb sustained multiple punches as he tried to intervene in the assault.
He carried Elston out of the stands and had to perform CPR to get her to start breathing again before they were both treated by medics, Talebi said.
“The Rose Bowl having bare bones security might make sense during UCLA football games when the stands are empty,” he said in a statement. “But when there are 60,000 fans at a sold-out concert with understaffed, undertrained, and inadequate security who are more interested in protecting the grass on the field than paying visitors in the stands, that’s a recipe for disaster.”
The complaint alleges that the Rose Bowl failed to employ sufficient security personnel to provide for the reasonable safety of its patrons during the Australian electronic music trio’s sold out event.
In a statement issued in the immediate aftermath of the attack, Derderian said the Rose Bowl always has “a very robust police, private security, medical, fire and fire prevention staff on-site that is tailored to meet the needs of the crowd.” She added that “when you get thousands of attendees, we do have incidents and that’s no excuse but we believe this is a ‘one-off’.”
Pasadena police said that three people were injured in the attack after Zavala reportedly became agitated due to a spilled beverage.
In addition to the assault, the concert drew criticism for being overcrowded inside and feeling like an unsafe environment. Fans took to social media to complain about long lines, the packed venue and poor crowd control, with some citing fears that it could have turned into a tragedy similar to the fatal crowd crush at 2021 Astroworld.
Elston and Webb suffered lost wages, medical expenses and emotional distress as a result of the attack, according to the complaint. They are suing the venue for negligence and premises liability and Zavala for battery. They are seeking compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial.