19 Action News|Cleveland, OH|Breaking News, Weather, Exclusives"Without 19 Action News, they probably never...": Action News gets Action for transgender

"Without 19 Action News, they probably never...": Action News gets Action for transgender

19 Action News broke the story of a woman attacked at an RTA stop last week and now we're getting action.

There has been some progress in the case, but are you safe?

Though still sore from being beaten and robbed, Alison Lancaster returned to the scene of the crime, the RTA station at W. 65th and Madison.

On November 19th, three teenagers shouted gay slurs and punched and kicked Alison until she was unconscious.

The 39 year old nursing student, who spends much of her time volunteering as a suicide prevention counselor, was walking out of the RTA station when she was attacked by 4 teenagers.

"I was on the ground, there was blood everywhere. People screaming. And it was just surreal," said Allison Lancaster.

She says the teenagers were shouting gay slurs.

"I had my big pink sweater on and that probably set em off," Allison Lancaster said.

A few days after the attack, Alison, a transgender female, felt like she was being brushed off by police. We discovered the officer who took the report failed to record it as a hate crime, and Cleveland Police took more than a week before they even assigned a detective to the case.

A few days after our story aired, the FBI's Hate Crime Unit showed up at Alison's door.

"Without 19 Action News, they probably would never have gotten wind of this. And I was amazed, because no police agency whatsoever has done anything close to this," said Alison.

The place were Alison was robbed is dimly lit and no one can see you from the street. There are emergency call boxes, but when Alison was mugged, two of the three did not work. And according to a detective, the surveillance cameras weren't working either.

"My issue is, I'm coming home at eight o'clock at night, it's dark and I have to trust that this place is safe," said Alison.

19 Action News checked and the call boxes have been fixed, but what about the surveillance cameras? A creepy place like that  certainly needs them.

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