The mother of a 19-year-old St. Paul man fatally shot outside a party bus in Inver Grove Heights has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the bus company and its driver.
In March 2018, Billy Robles, an aspiring rapper, was caught in crossfire in the parking lot of the AMC Showplace 16 movie theater after a fight broke out between two groups of teens who had been on the bus. Robles died of a gunshot wound to his chest.
Robles’ mother, Melissa Johnson, filed the lawsuit last month against Safeway Transit and its assumed name Rent My Party Bus in Dakota County District Court. Jody K. Lehr, who was the driver of the bus the night Robles was killed, is also named in the suit.
The civil complaint, which seeks in excess of $50,000 in damages, alleges that the defendants “knowingly or recklessly permitted” the teenagers to drink alcohol. Safeway and Rent My Party Bus are “vicariously liable” and negligent for all of Lehr’s actions that night, the suit claims.
Lehr permitted passengers to bring alcohol with them onto the bus and she “knew that several of the partygoers, including the ‘Offending Teenagers,’ were intoxicated, violent, and posed a real threat to other partygoers on the bus,” the suit alleges.
Lehr, 43, of Stillwater, could not be reached for comment Friday.
No attorney was listed for Rent My Party Bus in court records. A message left at the Farmington business Friday seeking comment was returned by a woman who declined to comment on the lawsuit. She declined to give her name, then ended the call.
Aleksey Silenko, director of Rent My Party Bus, did not respond to an email Friday seeking comment.
Robles grew up on St. Paul’s West Side and had attended Humboldt High School, where he played football. He was three months away from graduating from High School for Recording Arts, a charter school off University Avenue in St. Paul’s Midway neighborhood.
In YouTube videos dating back to 2016, Robles can be seen rapping under the moniker “BillyThaKidd,” often about growing up in poverty in St. Paul, marijuana and gun violence.
THERE WAS NO PULSE
Court documents and Lehr’s March 24, 2018, statement to police help shed light on what led up to the shooting.
Up to 50 partygoers, who ranged in age from 16 to mid-20s, were on the bus as it drove around for several hours late March 23 and into early March 24. Alcohol was consumed and played a part in the “mayhem,” police said.
The pink-painted former school bus was rented for a 19-year-old woman’s birthday party. Lehr met the partygoers at the movie theater parking lot at approximately 10:30 p.m. March 23, and they boarded the bus, which Lehr told police was “packed” with people.
Lehr said that usually bus partiers are “excited and happy,” but the group that night was not loud and even “boring.” She said she texted her boyfriend and told him there’s “something wrong with them” and that she “might need a bouncer.”
At one point, while driving on an Interstate 94 near downtown Minneapolis, a girl who was drunk vomited and the partygoers wanted to kick her off the bus, according to Lehr’s statement. When she pulled off the interstate at 7th Street, two guys got off the bus and fought, she said. Then, they got back on the bus.
Another fight between the two guys broke out around 1:30 a.m. as Lehr pulled into to the movie theater’s parking lot to drop off the revelers, she said. A 16-year-old boy was punched in the face, which led to others jumping in and getting involved in the fight, police said.
Lehr told police that she called 911 and that shots were fired in at least two different directions while she was talking to dispatch. She said she saw Robles lying on the ground just outside the door of the bus. People carried him back onto the bus.
Girls were crying and trying to get him to talk, Lehr said, and when she looked for a pulse, there was none.
10 YEARS IN PRISON
Police determined the Trashaun Morris, who was 17 at the time, fired the fatal shot that killed Robles. He was certified to stand trial as an adult in Dakota County District Court, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and in September was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
In 2018, two 16-year-old St. Paul teens were sentenced for their roles in the killing after pleading guilty to first-degree riot.
Samson Chu received a five-year stayed juvenile prison sentence. In exchange for the guilty plea, charges of attempted murder and second-degree assault were dismissed. Evidence shows that Chu fired a gun, but not the shot that killed Robles, according to prosecutors.
Daunte Martin was given a four-year sentence, which was stayed until age 21.
On Sept. 13, 2018, Taishawn Smith, then 18, of Crystal, pleaded guilty to one count of riot in the second degree and was sentenced to 13 months. Dakota County District Judge Tanya O’Brien gave him credit for 163 days in jail, probation for five years and stayed the execution of the sentence.
Just under three months later, on Dec. 9, Smith was shot while in a parked car in the Payne-Phalen area of St. Paul and died at Regions Hospital at age 19. A pregnant woman, also in the vehicle at the time, was struck and injured. A third passenger, also a woman, ran from the vehicle and escaped the bullets.
Authorities said the shooting was a gang-related.
In February, a jury acquitted a St. Paul man charged in connection with the shooting.
‘BILLY REPRESENTS THE WEST SIDE’
Reached this week, Johnson, Robles’ mother, said that her son was not part of any West Side street gang. She said he was “an amazing and unique individual” who brought joy to his seven siblings and “everyone around him.
He was buried at Riverview Cemetery, near her West Side home.
“It’s good for my other kids, because they can just go up there when they need to,” said Johnson, adding that she attends a support group through St. Paul police. “It’s good for them to have him so close.”
For the second anniversary of his death, Johnson asked people through Facebook to go to the movie theater parking lot and remember Robles. More than 100 people showed, including a few of the Inver Grove Heights police officers who were on scene the night he was killed.
Robles’ younger brother, Lucas Robles, was among those who spoke. He asked for peace.
“Billy represents the West Side,” Johnson said, “and there are kids out here that are breaking the law or whatever and calling themselves ‘Billy’s Gang. And so my 19-year-old, his little brother, he just let everybody know that if you’re doing anything in Billy’s name you can’t be out here committing crimes and that Billy was not about that stuff.”