According to court documents, survivors of the fatal mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have filed a $27 billion class action lawsuit against multiple law enforcement agencies in Texas
The city, the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, the school district’s police department, the Uvalde Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and a number of individuals who are members or former members of the agencies named as defendants are named in the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in federal court in Austin.
The plaintiffs include parents, instructors, and school staff members who were there on May 24 when 19 children and two teachers were gunned down in adjoining classrooms, just days before school was to end for the summer. At least 17 additional people were injured.
The atrocity, the second worst shooting on a K-12 school in the United States, drew 376 law enforcement officials from various agencies.
After the shooter entered two neighboring classrooms, officers waited 77 minutes before breaking in and murdering the gunman, an 18-year-old Uvalde native.
The victims and survivors “sustained emotional and psychological damages as a result of Defendants’ conduct and omissions” as a result of the shooting, according to the lawsuit.
Despite active shooter training, law enforcement “fundamentally deviated from what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit goes on to mention the disorganization and lengthy response time by law enforcement to the incident.
“Instead of quickly implementing an organized and concerted response to an active school shooter who had breached the otherwise’secured’ school buildings at Robb Elementary school, the conduct of the three hundred and seventy-six (376) law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustingly torturous seventy-seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards,” the suit claims.
“There are no words to adequately express our deepest condolences to all the families who lost a loved one on May 24,” Anne Marie Espinoza, a spokesperson for the school district, said in a statement to CNN. “Uvalde CISD cannot comment on or provide information about pending litigation. As a district, we focus on supporting our students and their families as we continue to navigate these unprecedented times.”
CNN has reached out to the city of Uvalde and the state public safety department for comment.
The civil action is one of numerous filed in the aftermath of the massacre seeking compensation from a variety of parties. In a federal complaint filed earlier this week, almost two dozen persons and businesses, including the gun manufacturer and store that supplied the weapon used in the attack, are accused of being irresponsible and failing to safeguard a student who was slain. In September, other families filed a similar case.
Separately, survivors and families of the victims filed a new lawsuit on Tuesday, seeking $6 billion in damages from firearm manufacturer Daniel Defense and Uvalde gun store Oasis Outback, alleging that the shooter “turned to” the manufacturer, “who, due to a concerted and intentional marketing campaign specifically aimed at the demographic of young, isolated, troubled, and violent young men, successfully won over the shooter.”
According to the lawsuit, “despite all the indicia that reasonably raised doubts as to (the gunman’s) fitness to purchase,” Oasis Outback, the Uvalde gun store that sold him guns and ammunition, allowed the purchase to take place, “effectively providing him with an inordinate amount of guns, accessories, and ammunition that should have foreseeably raised significant flags of concern.”
CNN contacted Daniel Defense and Oasis Outback for comment.
Aside from the $6 billion in damages, the complaint wants to prevent Daniel Defense from “persisting in its marketing effort oriented at young, underage kids in which it carelessly dismisses and minimizes the dangers of its weaponry.”
