A Buda woman is suing Tesla after an alleged assault late last year by Ndiaga Diagne, the man who police say fatally shot three people and hospitalized 16 more last week outside Buford’s bar.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit filed<\/a> on behalf of Lillian Brady accuses Diagne of an assault in December during work hours at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Del Valle. Brady’s suit says Tesla would not divulge his identity after the alleged assault.<\/p>\n The suit, which was filed Thursday in a Travis County court, seeks $1 million in damages and accuses Tesla of negligence for not maintaining a safe workspace in light of Diagne’s alleged “volatile temperament and propensity for aggression.”<\/p>\n The lawsuit says Diagne was on a prayer break in a “common area” when he “violently and without provocation physically assaulted [Brady].”<\/p>\n Brady’s attorney, Bob Hilliard, said Brady was thrown to the ground and sustained neck and back injuries. He told KUT News that his client didn’t know her assailant’s identity until his picture was splashed across news coverage of the Buford’s mass shooting. News of the lawsuit was first reported<\/a> by the Austin American-Statesman.<\/p>\n Hilliard says the electric carmaker was “stonewalling” her after she brought the assault to its attention. He thinks the assault would’ve put Diagne on law enforcement’s radar, possibly preventing last week’s shootings.<\/p>\n “It’s just curious to me that a company … that claims it can go to Mars has no way of making sure … that their employees remain safe from other employees who may be dangerous,” he said, “but also [has] no way to identify and make law enforcement aware of these type of troubling behaviors, which often do lead to an escalation. Sadly, and tragically, the escalation in this case was unthinkable.”<\/p>\n Hilliard said his client was dissuaded from pursuing charges with the Travis County Sheriff’s Office, but that she ultimately did reach out to law enforcement.<\/p>\n The sheriff’s office said that it did open up an investigation into the incident. It’s since been closed after Diagne’s death.<\/p>\n The Austin Police Department said this week that Diagne was “not on our radar” before he killed three people<\/a> \u2014\u00a0Savitha Shan, Ryder Harrington and Jorge Pederson \u2014\u00a0and injured more than a dozen bystanders outside Buford’s early Sunday morning. <\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed to KUT News earlier this week<\/a> that Diagne was arrested in 2022 in Texas following a car crash. Records from civil court in Bexar County<\/a> also show that a judge found Diagne had a \u201chistory or pattern of committing family violence\u201d in 2022.<\/p>\n