Survivors of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, filed a class-action lawsuit against law enforcement entities, the school district and others seeking $27 billion in damages, according to court documents.
The lawsuit, filed on Tuesday, lists the Uvalde School District, Uvalde Police Department, the school district’s police department, the Texas Department of Public Safety and several individuals, such as police lieutenants and officers.
In May, a shooter entered Robb Elementary School and gunned down 19 children and two teachers, while 17 more were injured, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
The plaintiffs, which include parents, teachers and staff members, claim that law enforcement failed to neutralize the shooter immediately, which led to further trauma and injuries.
Almost 400 law officials arrived at the scene. They waited over 70 minutes to take action and enter the classroom where the shooter hid with the victims.
According to the lawsuit, the defendants “fundamentally strayed from conducting themselves in conformity with what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter.”
“Instead of swiftly 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 exhaustively torturous seventy-seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards,” the lawsuit claims.
According to the lawsuit, victims and survivors of the shooting “sustained emotional and psychological damages as a result of defendants’ conduct and omissions on that date.”
Nearly 30 minors are listed as plaintiffs. The lawsuit claims that these children are emotionally scarred and suffering from severe anxiety, fear of the dark, nightmares and separation anxiety.
“They’re totally changed from what they were on May 23, the day before this incident,” attorney Charles Bonner said, per CBS affiliate KENS5. “They’re just suffering and in misery.”
One of the plaintiffs, who witnessed his teacher get shot, has refused to leave the house or his parent’s side since the massacre. He obsessively locks doors and closes the window blinds and sleeps in his parents’ bedroom, the lawsuit said.
KENS5 reports that lawyers have also filed a $6 billion suit against the gunmaker, Daniel Defense, and the Oasis Outback, the local store where the shooter purchased his weapon.
Plaintiffs claim Daniel Defense markets its guns to young people by likening the weapons to military-grade guns.
The suit claims that Oasis Outback employees missed, “blatantly obvious red flags” when they sold the gun to the shooter, per KENS5.
“It’s happening again and again and again ... why? Because they don’t value our children’s lives,” Bonner said at a news conference on Wednesday, per KENS5. “It’s about accountability. ... This lawsuit is going to demand accountability and systemic policy changes.”