Was It retaliation for Allums’ Exposing Possible Child abuse in the Department?
Dennis Allums vs. Bay Area Rapid Transit: A Fight for Civil Rights and Accountability
In April 2025, Oakland native and disability-rights advocate Dennis Bruce Allums filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit against Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), alleging discrimination, elder abuse, unlawful detention, and retaliation following an incident at the El Cerrito Plaza Station
Allums, who recently suffered numerous cardiac arrest, in which stopped the air to his brain. And is currently legal disabled, says a station agent unlawfully seized his Clipper card, mocked his memory impairments, and detained him without cause. When BART Police arrived, they allegedly refused to take his report and later misclassified the event as a “fare dispute” rather than a theft and ADA violation. The complaint details how officers attempted to bribe him into silence and later concealed video evidence, triggering oversight by the Office of the Independent Police Auditor (OIPA)
This is not Allums’s first clash with BART. In 2018, he reported a suspected child assault at Oakland’s 19th Street Station. Emails show that when he pressed officials to preserve video evidence, officers stonewalled him, gave contradictory statements about video retention, and ultimately stopped responding. He believes his exposing of Bart and its abuses of not protecting children, was at least partially cause of the abuse.
Those earlier frustrations foreshadowed the current lawsuit’s allegations of cover-ups and indifference to public safety.
Allums’ 2025 complaint seeks $250,000 in damages and an injunction requiring BART to implement ADA and elder-sensitivity training, ensure transparency in internal investigations, and apologize publicly for the incident
According to documents from OIPA dated May 27, 2025, the agency confirmed it is monitoring Internal Affairs Case #25-21, meaning BART’s own police oversight body recognizes the gravity of Allums’s claims.
For Allums, this case is about more than personal justice. It’s about holding Bay Area institutions accountable for how they treat the elderly and disabled. “They laughed at me, took my property, and erased the truth,” Allums said in court filings. “If that can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.”
