The announcement comes two days before the two-year anniversary of the Texas city’s elementary school massacre.
The city of Uvalde has reached a $2 million settlement with most of the families of the victims of a mass shooting at an elementary school in the Texas city, one of its lawyers said.
Wednesday’s announcement came two days before the second anniversary of the massacre.
In one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and barricaded himself in adjacent classrooms filled with dozens of students. .
A U.S. Department of Justice analysis concluded that local police ignored accepted practices by not confronting the attacker, instead waiting outside the classroom for more than an hour despite children’s pleas for help.
“The city of Uvalde agreed to pay their insurance for $2 million, which is all there was,” Josh Koskoff, who represented the families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, said at a news conference to announce the agreement.
He said the settlement involved the families of 17 of the children who were killed and two children who survived.
Another lawyer announced that the families of 19 of the victims have filed a $500 million federal lawsuit against nearly 100 state police officers who were part of authorities’ botched response to one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.
The families are suing 92 Texas Department of Public Safety employees who were at the incident, Erin Rogiers, a partner at Guerra LLP, who represents the families along with Koskoff and Bieder PC, said in a statement.
State and federal police officers represented the majority of the 376 law enforcement officers who waited 77 minutes before confronting and killing the 18-year-old gunman, Koskoff said.
The lawsuit, which seeks at least $500 million in compensation, is the latest of several seeking accountability for authorities’ response.
It is the first lawsuit to be filed after a 600-page Justice Department report was released in January cataloging “cascading failures” in training, communication, leadership and technology problems on the day of the shooting.
The lawsuit notes that state troopers did not follow their active shooter training or confront the shooter, even though the students and teachers inside followed their own lockdown protocols of turning off lights, locking doors and remaining silent.
“The protocols trap teachers and students inside, leaving them completely dependent on authorities to respond quickly and effectively,” the families and their lawyers said in a statement.
The victims’ families filed a separate lawsuit in December 2022 against local and state police, the city and other school and law enforcement officials, seeking at least $27 billion and class-action status for the survivors.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
