The mother of a 10-year-old killed in the Uvalde school shooting has filed a federal lawsuit against the gun-maker and seller, the city of Uvalde, its school district and several law enforcement officers.
Sandra Torres’ daughter Eliahna was one of 19 students and 2 teachers killed by an 18-year-old gunman at Robb Elementary in May.
“I miss her every moment of every day,” Torres said in a joint press release with her lawyers from Everytown for Gun Safety’s legal team and Texas-based LM Law Group. “I’ve brought this lawsuit to seek accountability. No parent should ever go through what I have.”
The new lawsuit alleges that Daniel Defense — the manufacturer of the shooter’s weapon — violated the Federal Trade Commission Act, arguing that the Georgia-based company’s marketing on social media and video games “prime young buyers to purchase AR-15-style rifles as soon as they are legally able.” Earlier this year, gun-maker Remington settled a lawsuit for $73 million with the Sandy Hook shooting victims’ families who had also targeted the company’s marketing.
Torres’ lawsuit also accused Oasis Outback of “reckless dereliction” of selling weapons to the 18-year-old shooter. Some store patrons later told the FBI that he had “appeared odd and looked like one of those school shooters.”
The suit also accuses various law enforcement officers of failing “to follow active shooter protocols.” It argues that their decision to treat the active shooter as a “barricaded subject” inside the two classrooms had violated the victims’ constitutional rights.
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Many of these defendants have also been facing a federal lawsuit filed by the families of three student survivors in September, which alleges that the parties’ actions and negligence contributed to the shooting. This followed another claim filed in August seeking $27 billion from the school district and other government agencies to compensate the victims.
Numerous Uvalde officials and officers have also resigned or been fired over the past few months, and the school district also suspended its entire police department in October. Some are named in Torres’ lawsuit, including former Uvalde school district police Chief Pete Arredondo, Uvalde Police Department’s acting chief Lt. Mariano Pargas, as well as Texas Department of Public Safety’s troopers Juan Maldonado andCrimson Elizondo.
See here and here for more on the earlier lawsuits; the former is a class action suit that I’m still not sure has actually been filed yet. The Chron adds some details.
The 77-page lawsuit accuses many of the defendants of contributing to wrongful death, negligence and violating the constitutional rights of Eliahna and other victims at Robb Elementary.
“Sometimes the only way you get justice is by filing a lawsuit,” said Blas Delgado of San Antonio, the lead lawyer for the Torres family. “There have been a lot of questions throughout the investigation, and we hope this also helps answer some of them.”
The suit alleges that Daniel Defense “markets its products to adolescent and young men using a range of channels, including social media content, product placements, and print advertising.
“For example, Daniel Defense promotes its products heavily on Instagram, a platform with a young user base,” the lawsuit states.
“Daniel Defense also places its products in video games, and then heavily promotes the video game tie-ins in the company’s social media accounts,” the suit said.
The gun manufacturer did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
Salvador Ramos of Uvalde bought a DDM4 V7 rifle on Daniel Defense’s website for $2,054.28 on May 16, his 18th birthday.
On another website, he paid $1,761.50 for 1,740 rounds of ammunition for the rifle.
The next day, Ramos went to Oasis Outback and bought a Smith & Wesson M&P15 assault rifle for $1,081.42, the lawsuit said.
The day after that, the teenager went back to Oasis Outback to buy an additional 375 rounds of AR-15 ammunition.
Ramos returned to Oasis Outback again two days later, on May 20, to pick up his Daniel Defense rifle and bought accessories for the weapon.
“Oasis Outback had a duty not to sell weapons to the just-turned 18-year-old shooter, who it knew or reasonably should have known was likely to harm himself or others,” the suit said.
“The shooter was described by patrons of the store as having a nervous disposition and behaving suspiciously.”
“The shooter had purchased two extraordinarily lethal assault weapons and enough ammunition to fight off a small army, as well as a holographic sight and Hellfire Gen 2 trigger system, spending thousands of dollars within days of his 18th birthday,” it stated.
We’ve talked about Daniel Defense before. I’d love to see them at least feel compelled to settle, but suffice it to say I consider that an underdog. With SCOTUS as it is I fear they’re untouchable. But I hope to be proved wrong. Reform Houston and the Current have more.
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