Nowhere Safe Tenants sue their apartment complex's owner after a brutal attack. by ASHLEY FANTZ wo days before Christmas your life ends. There's no sound except for the light crunch of feet on snow outside Clearbrook Village Apartments in southeast Memphis. You're exhausted from work and staying up late watching movies. You're not in the mood for a fight. There's a knock at the door then, just as your body has finally begun to relax. "It's Brian," a voice says. Your roommate, a friend you've recently moved in with, thinks she knows a person named Brian who lives downstairs. It's the neighborly thing to do -- to open a door for an acquaintance you think needs something. The door opens and the man standing in your living room is not Brian. He's a stranger who looks at you and your friend and then turns around and leaves. You talk with your roommate about how strange that was and start to get worried. Lacing up your shoes, you tell her something is really wrong, that you have a bad feeling. She goes to chain lock the door only to be hit with it as the same man kicks the door open. The alleged attacker's name is Paul Flannigan and he's got a gun. You quickly start for the bedroom where there's a rifle. The assailant throws your Christmas tree against the door. He puts a gun to your roommate's head and says he'll kill her if you make one more step. It feels as though someone has taken a sledgehammer to the back of your knees. It feels like you're watching TV because when the attacker orders you to get undressed and have sex with your roommate while he watches, you pray to God this is not really happening. The hideousness of December 23, 1998, continues as the assailant screams that you're not "doing it right." With a knife from the kitchen he cuts your neck, just missing your windpipe and then climbs on your roommate. He is unable to get an erection, so he rapes your roommate with the barrel of the gun. He then orders you to have sex again with her, cutting your throat again. For no reason, the attacker gets up and goes to the kitchen. The only door that will save you is in the kitchen. Your tree and all its ornaments are blocking the other exit. Like two bloody, shell-shocked soldiers you and she stagger toward a second-story glass window. She goes through first and then you leap. Although it's one of the more shocking crimes in recent years at Clearbrook Village Apartments, it isn't unusual. Since 1994 hundreds of crimes from burglary to car theft have occurred at the complex owned by Mid-America Apartments, Inc., whose corporate office is in Memphis. There is no security at Clearbrook. On behalf of the roommates assaulted last December, attorney Jeff Rosenblum has filed a $3 million lawsuit against the corporation. Paul Flannigan is now in jail awaiting trial. "We have a listing of all of the police reports since 1994 and it's shocking," Rosenblum says. "Had Clearbrook taken steps to set up some form of security system, we think there's a good chance this never would have happened." Rosenblum is using the 1996 Tennessee Supreme Court case McClung v. Delta LP Square to argue that landlords are liable for crimes that happen to their tenants if the complex owners' crimes against its customers is foreseeable. McClung stems from a 1990 abduction, rape, and murder of a woman at Delta Square Shopping Center in Memphis. Clearbrook has changed landlords since the incident, and the current landlord Jackie Carpten did not know anything about the case when contacted by the Flyer. When the corporate office in Memphis was contacted, their insurance liability overseer did not know about it either. However, the corporate office has chosen defense attorney Ron Harper as counsel. There was a fence around Clearbrook but not one that locks. Clearbrook is arguing that because Paul Flannigan, the plaintiffs' alleged attacker, was a guest of another tenant, they are not responsible for the incident. The male plaintiff, who asked the Flyer not to use his name, says that if Clearbrook had acknowledged that this happened to him and his roommate, he might not have filed suit. "A lot of people have asked me," the plaintiff says. "'Would it have made a difference to have a system set up like a quick dial to an on-sight security guard?' Definitely. Some have said, 'Well, why didn't you just call the police?' That would have meant picking up the phone, dialing 911, getting put on hold, and then having to explain the incident and give the address. A guard would have been much quicker. "I just feel totally ignored," he continues. "That guy forced his way into our apartment. Our rent was high -- over $500 for a one-bedroom. Couldn't they afford some type of security system? I've just gotten no cooperation from them. I didn't have insurance when this happened so everything has come out of my pocket. Clearbrook never offered to help pay for any physical therapy. If they would have, I would have been fine with that." Because the plaintiff could not afford therapy to treat his slashed leg, he taught himself to walk again. He lost 30 pounds and has trouble sleeping. His roommate, who suffered severe cuts to her calf, has chosen not to talk about the assault. Three months afterward, however, the male plaintiff returned to the Clearbrook apartment with his father to retrieve some belongings. Everything was exactly as he had left it except a thick coating of fingerprint dust on the walls. There was still some blood on the walls and floor. "In the month and a half that I was living there, I called the police because our lady neighbor was getting beat up by her boyfriend and I saw someone's car being vandalized," he says. "I didn't intend to stay there for long. But I want this law suit to show people how important it is to do the research on an apartment they're thinking of renting. As with corporations, just because they have a nice middle-class complex doesn't mean they don't own one that's crime-ridden. Ask other tenants what it's like living there. Demand security."