Students, parents, teachers, and staff members from Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, filed a potential class action seeking $27 billion, claiming that the failure of law enforcement officers to immediately neutralize a mass shooter at the school added to their trauma and injuries.
State and local regulations required the responding officers to disregard their own safety during an active shooter incident and subdue the shooter as soon as possible, the complaint said. Instead, the scene at the school on May 24, 2022 was chaotic with no command and control by law enforcement, the plaintiffs claim.
Law enforcement officers, who were trained to quickly respond to an active shooter, weren’t communicating with each other, and it took 77 minutes for them to neutralize the shooter, according to the complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the Western District of Texas.
The civil rights suit claimed that Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District and the city of Uvalde violated the plaintiffs’ due process rights by failing to adequately supervise and train officers and ensure that law enforcement agencies enforced the active shooter protocols. Individual law enforcement officials violated the plaintiffs’ due process rights by ordering their subordinates to contravene the active shooter protocols that required them to quickly neutralize the shooter, the plaintiffs said.
Cause of Action: Violation of due process.
Damages: $27 Billion.
Potential Class Size: All Robb Elementary students, and staff present on campus during the shooting, as well as parents of the students.
Response: The school district didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Attorneys: The Bonner Law Firm PC; Jesse Ryder of East Syracuse, N.Y.; Winstead PC; and Johnson Trial Law represent the plaintiffs.
The case is J.P. v. Uvalde Consol. Indep. Sch. Dist., W.D. Tex., No. 1:22-cv-01252, complaint filed 11/29/22.
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