Families of the victims in the Uvalde elementary school shooting listen to attorney Josh Koskoff during a news conference, Wednesday, May 22, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Families of victims killed and wounded in the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, announced a $500 million federal lawsuit against officers in the failed response that led to the massacre of 19 fourth graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary School.
The lawsuit alleges officers failed to follow proper protocols for the active shooter situation on May 24, 2022, when a former student armed with an AR-style rifle murdered more than a dozen children before he was shot by a U.S. Border Patrol Tactical Unit 77 minutes later. The lawsuit was filed by the families of 17 children who died and two children who survived the shooting by hiding beside their dead classmates’ bodies. Among the defendants are 92 officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS), the city’s school district and its former police chief.
“You had over 150 some-odd federal officers there who also were there and stood around until one or more breached the room at 77 minutes,” said Josh Koskoff, an attorney for the families, in a news conference announcing the lawsuit and a settlement with the city of Uvalde from an earlier lawsuit. “Sure, that was a heroic act. It was a heroic act 77 minutes late.”
The lawsuit alleges the case stems from “the single greatest failure of law enforcement to confront an active shooter in American history.” It said the 376 officers who responded to the school “turned a lockdown into a death trap,” with officers “fearful of the shooter’s ‘battle rifle.’” The lawsuit comes after a U.S. Department of Justice report on the response to the shooting earlier this year found failures in leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training and that the authorities failed to treat the emergency as an active shooter situation.
Erin Rogiers, a partner at Guerra LLP and an attorney for the families, said law enforcement’s inaction that day was “a complete and absolute betrayal of these families and the sons, daughters and mothers they lost.”
“TXDPS had the resources, training and firepower to respond appropriately, and they ignored all of it and failed on every level,” Rogiers said. “These families have not only the right but also the responsibility to demand justice, both for their own loss and to prevent other families from suffering the same fate.”
Representatives with the Texas Department of Public Safety declined to comment, citing the pending litigation, The Associated Press reported.
Separately, in announcing the settlement with the city of Uvalde, the families’ lawyers said the amount was capped at $2 million and would be paid from the city’s insurance coverage to prevent Uvalde from going bankrupt.
“Pursuing further legal action against the city could have plunged Uvalde into bankruptcy, something that none of the families were interested in as they look for the community to heal,” the lawyers said.
Other terms of the settlement include a new “fitness for duty” standard and training for Uvalde police officers. It also establishes May 24 as an annual Day of Remembrance, creates a permanent memorial at the plaza, and offers mental health services for families, survivors and the community.
In a statement, the city of Uvalde said, “We will forever be grateful to the victims’ families for working with us over the past year to cultivate an environment of community-wide healing that honors the lives and memories of those we tragically lost. May 24th is our community’s greatest tragedy.”
Veronica Luevanos, whose daughter Jailah and nephew Jayce were killed, said the settlement with Uvalde is a step toward rebuilding, but there’s more work to be done.
“For two long years, we have languished in pain and without any accountability from the law enforcement agencies and officers who allowed our families to be destroyed that day,” she said. “This settlement reflects a first good faith effort by the city of Uvalde to begin rebuilding trust in the systems that failed to protect us. But it wasn’t just Uvalde officers who failed us that day. Nearly 100 officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety have yet to face a shred of accountability for cowering in fear while my daughter and nephew bled to death in their classroom.”
As Law&Crime has reported, the tragedy prompted a review of the police conduct and findings by the Texas House of Representatives Investigative Committee of “systemic failures and egregious poor decision making,” the forced resignation of the incident commander, a $27 billion class action lawsuit by survivors against local officials, and a lawsuit against the gun manufacturer by a mother over her daughter’s death.
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