Uvalde Survivors File $27 Billion Class-Action Suit— Here Are All The Suits Filed Against Police, Gun Makers, And School Officials

Topline

Nearly 30 survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, filed a $27 billion class action lawsuit, alleging law enforcement officials’ miscommunication and inaction failed to prevent the gunman from killing 21 people, including 19 children.

Survivors of the Uvalde school shooting in Texas filed a class-action lawsuit against the school … [+] district and local law enforcement.

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Key Facts

The lawsuit—filed by parents, teachers and school staff members, including bus drivers—was filed against the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the school district police department, as well as the Uvalde Police Department, the state’s Department of Public Safety and multiple officials in the school and local law agencies.

Plaintiffs in the suit, filed Tuesday in an Austin, Texas, federal court, said they were “traumatized” by officers’ inaction, which has been heavily criticized following the release of video footage and a state report revealing officers involved waited more than an hour to confront the 18-year-old shooter.

They also claim former school police department chief Pete Arredondo and former school principal Mandy Gutierrez acted “with deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights” of the plaintiffs—Arredondo was fired in August while Gutierrez was reassigned within the district after having been put on administrative leave.

The lawsuit claims police ignored “well-established protocols and standards” despite having been trained on active shooter responses through the Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training program—which was established in response to the 1999 Columbine school shooting.

Defendants have not yet responded to the lawsuit; in recent months, though, Arredondo had defended the police’s response in a June interview with the Texas Tribune, blaming the prolonged effort on a locked classroom door, saying the “only thing that was important” was to “save as many teachers and children as possible”—though a state report found the door was not locked.

Crucial Quote

“Instead of swiftly implementing an organized and concerted response to an active school scooter who had breached the otherwise ‘secured’ school buildings at Robb Elementary School, the conduct of the [376] law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustively torturous 77 minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards,” plaintiffs allege in the lawsuit.

Key Background

Local law enforcement has come under fire for its lax response to the shooting on May 24, which left 21 people dead. According to a state House committee report in July, the slow response by more than 375 officers who responded to the shooting was due to “systemic failures” and “egregious poor decision making.” Those officers waited more than an hour to confront Ramos—an “abject failure,” according to Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw. The attack at Robb Elementary School was one of several high-profile mass shootings in the U.S. that prompted Congress to pass a gun control bill in June aimed at strengthening background checks and providing funding for states to enact red-flag laws that allow courts to seize firearms from people determined to be dangerous to themselves or others.

Tangent

The suit comes two months after another class action lawsuit was filed by families of the victims against the school district, local law enforcement officials and gun companies, accusing them of “negligent, careless and reckless” decisions that enabled 18-year-old Savlador Ramos to carry out the attack. That suit also named Oasis Outback, the gun store that allegedly sold Ramos two assault rifles, as well as Daniel Defense, which makes the rifle that Ramos used, and Firequest International, which produces the accessory trigger system that plaintiffs allege is “unreasonably dangerous and illegal.” A federal lawsuit filed earlier this week by the family of one of the students killed in the shooting, also names the gun shop, gun manufacturer and local law enforcement officers.

News Peg

In a separate lawsuit filed Thursday afternoon, Uvalde city officials allege Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell withheld critical information requested by an independent investigator into an ongoing internal affairs probe of the police’s response to the shooting. The Texas Tribune reported that the lawsuit seeks all relevant records to the investigation. It comes one month after the school district suspended its entire police department.