Some of you might have seen a tall thin lady in a baseball cap and a gray hoodie get up and speak at last night’s Long Beach City Council meeting. That was Star Harris, and as she spoke, her ailing mother Debro Saad sat in the audience–hooked up to her oxygen tank and sobbing at what her daughter had to say.

Harris’s tale is indeed a sad one: she says that some time after midnight, Aug. 20, 2004, she fell over some crates inside the 7-Eleven franchise at Tenth Street and Long Beach Boulevard–injuring her back and head, and breaking three ribs.When she was finally able to limp up to the counter and call 9-1-1 on a telephone the clerk handed her, Harris says she was punched by an unidentified man in line, who knocked her down a second time, then calmly paid for his beer and left. A copy of the store’s security camera DVD from that night–which Harris says she got through her first attorney–shows that second incident.Harris, naturally, is suing–and thinks her case could be worth $1 million or more. 7-Eleven attorneys consider it a slip-and-fall case and have been somewhat successful in focusing the court’s attention solely on Harris’s accident. They’ve also asked a judge not to allow that DVD footage in court–and to bar Harris’s mother from testifying.

7-Eleven attorneys offered Harris $15,000 to settle the case last year, and she turned them down. Both sides will talk it over again Oct. 29 when they meet at San Pedro Courthouse for a status conference.But Harris said at last night’s City Council meeting that she, her mother, and their friends will be holding an old-fashioned, get-the-message-out protest this Friday night–outside the 7-Eleven where it all happened. They’ve done this at least twice before, and it usually starts around 7 p.m.

“There’s a reason this case is still on the docket,” Harris’s mother said last week. “There’s something not quite right about it.”

She’s right: this case is much stranger than it sounds.

Tags: 7-Eleven, California, Debro Saad, Long Beach, Long Beach City Council, Southern California, Star Harris, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas