The brother of a man who drowned in the Highland Park Reservoir earlier this year has sued the city of Rochester for $42 million, alleging city officials failed to secure the property and follow federal regulations.
In March, the body of 29-year-old Abdullahi Muya was found in the reservoir, where it had been for several weeks. Its discovery prompted the city to issue a boil water advisory for a portion of the city’s west side.
Muya’s brother, Mahamud Muya, filed a notice of claim against the city in May. His attorney, Langston McFadden, filed a federal lawsuit against the city late last week.
The complaint accuses the city of negligence, wrongful death, failure to maintain the reservoir premises, and violating Abudllahi Muya’s civil rights. It asks a judge to award $10.5 million in damages for each of the four complaints.
A spokesperson for the city said they had not been served the lawsuit as of Tuesday.
McFadden, in a phone call, said questions remain on just how Abdullahi Muya was able to bypass the city’s security measures and enter the reservoir, as well as for his body to remain undiscovered for nearly a month.
“The mayor talked about how secure the area was, and how precise the sensors were,” McFadden said. “However, through some manner or method, Abdullahi was not only able to enter the park, but walk around clearly in mental distress for over two hours...He was somehow able to enter the city’s drinking water contained in the reservoir and subsequently died and stayed there.”
Muya, a refugee from Somalia, immigrated to the United States with his mother and three siblings in 2004. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia several years prior to his death and had not been seen by his family since about a week before he drowned, according to the complaint.
Mahamud Muya had last seen Abdullahi on Feb. 18, after he dropped him off at his apartment following a day of doing volunteer work for the Islamic Center of Rochester, according to the complaint. When he returned to the apartment later that night, Abdullahi was gone.
His next documented appearance occurred just before 5:30 a.m. on Feb. 24, when he was captured on Highland Park security cameras. In those videos, Muya can be seen wandering around the park erratically, speaking to himself, and stripping off his clothes.
Muya’s death is captured on the video. In it, he can be seen taking off his pants and sliding down the reservoir’s embankment into the water. He resurfaces and struggles to stay afloat for two minutes, before drowning. His body was discovered on March 19, more than three weeks later.
McFadden, both in the complaint and in the lawsuit, argued the city had failed on multiple fronts to prevent Muya’s death. Among them is failure to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Long Term 2 (LT2) Enhanced Surface Water Treatment rule. LT2 requires all municipal reservoirs to be covered or use various purification methods, largely to reduce the spread of the chlorine-resistant parasite cryptosporidium.
That rule was passed in 2006, and while the city had discussed covering the reservoir in 2007, it was shelved due to public outcry. Earlier discussions concluded ultraviolent disinfection systems were the best fit.
In February, prior to the discovery of Muya’s body, the Rochester City Council passed a bill to hire a design firm to make the city LT2 compliant by 2029.
While the purpose of LT2 is not to protect people from drowning in the reservoir, the complaint argues that Muya may not have died if the city had already been compliant with the rule.
“It is a sad and tragic reality that Abdullahi’s untimely, traumatic, and horrific death could have been prevented,” the complaint reads.
The city was unable to determine how Muya was able to access the reservoir without triggering any security measures, nor how regularly security footage from the reservoir is reviewed. The reservoir is outfitted with motion and thermal sensors alongside security cameras. The city has said none were triggered on the morning of Muya’s death.
“The family’s main focus here is getting answers and trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” McFadden said.
