Lawsuit will also list Uvalde city and county police, the Texas Rangers, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the US Border Patrol as defendants.
A gun maker and a gun shop are listed as defendants in a massive $27 billion class action lawsuit set to be filed on behalf of parents of victims slain in the Robb Elementary School mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Announced Sunday, the families represented by the Law Offices of Bonner & Bonner are seeking to hold a litany of defendants liable for the shooting that claimed the lives of 19 young children and two school staffers, including several city, state and federal law enforcement agencies which simultaneously failed to stop gunman Salvador Ramos back in May.
According to San Antonio-area ABC affiliate KSAT, the lawsuit lists Robb Elementary school police, former school district police chief Pete Arredondo, Uvalde city police, Uvalde county sheriffs, the Texas Rangers, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the US Border Patrol as defendants.
Gun manufacturer Daniel Defense, which made the gun used during the shooting, and the Oasis Outback gun store, which legally sold Ramos the gun he used, are also listed as defendants.
“There will be some institutional defendants as well, such as school board or such as City Council or such as the City of the Uvalde,” attorney Charles Bonner told KSAT.
Bonner claimed the lawsuit was being filed to “serve the community.”
“What we intend to do (is) to help serve this community, and that is to file a $27 billion civil rights lawsuit under our United States Constitution, one-of-a-kind in the whole world,” he told KSAT.
The lawyer argued law enforcement agencies ignored the US Constitution’s 14th Amendment by depriving people of life.
“People have a right to life under the 14th Amendment and what we’ve seen here is that the law enforcement agencies have shown a deliberate conscious disregard of the life,” Bonner said.
Bonner says the nearly $30 billion price tag will ensure what happened in Uvalde, where several police units were caught on camera hesitating for over an hour to confront the shooter, never happens again.
“Everyone in this world are hurting and bleeding about what is happening here in Uvalde. And it’s up to us to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Bonner said.
The attorney did not elaborate on how the gun store which followed all protocols in selling the firearm, or the gun maker had any responsibility in the shooting.
The Daily Caller reports Daniel Defense and Oasis Outback did not respond to requests for comment. The US Border Patrol and the City of Uvalde stated they would not comment on pending litigation.
Lawyers say they’ll file the suit in September after the Justice Department concludes their investigation into the shooting.
The lawsuit’s targeting of Daniel Defense is reminiscent of the wrongful death suit filed by Sandy Hook victims’ parents against Remington Arms company in 2014 that resulted in a landmark $73 million settlement to nine victims’ families seven years later.
The suit comes as gun control group Uvalde Strong for Gun Safety demanded the Oasis Outback gun shop stop selling “assault rifles” and ammunition, or face protests outside their store.
CLOUDHEDGES 