Uvalde Settles With Shooting Victims for $2M

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Facts

  • The city of Uvalde, Texas, reached a $2M settlement with most of the families of the victims of the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting. After 19 children and two teachers were killed, the US Dept. Justice (DOJ) found that the police failed to confront the shooter.1
  • The settlement, which was announced Wednesday, will pay the families of 17 children who died and two who were injured. It includes a pledge to create a permanent memorial and overhaul the city's police force. The group also has dozens of lawsuits against state and local bodies.2
  • This settlement and the lawsuit against state authorities are in response to officers waiting 77 minutes to stop the shooter. Former Uvalde police chief Pete Arredondo and school principal Mandy Gutierrez are also named in the new lawsuit.3
  • As children were calling 911 from inside the school, roughly 400 officers from approximately 24 state and federal law enforcement agencies waited more than an hour to intervene. Lawyers argue the victims' 14th Amendment rights were violated.4
  • The new lawsuit claims police wrongfully chose not to treat the incident as an active shooter event. It also blames Schneider Electric for manufacturing faulty school door locks and Motorola for manufacturing the faulty radios used by police.4
  • One of the families' lawyers said the legal team is currently working on a settlement with Uvalde County and plans to sue others, including the federal government. Separate lawsuits are also ongoing, including against the manufacturer of the rifle used in the shooting.5

Sources: 1Al Jazeera, 2CBS, 3Guardian, 4wsj.com and 5New York Times.

Narratives

  • Left narrative, as provided by Washington Post. These families deserve this settlement, but the city, state, and law enforcement must do more to strengthen gun control policies and safety plans. So much went wrong leading up to and during this tragedy, so everyone's goal should be to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again.
  • Right narrative, as provided by Federalist. This tragedy was all about the police officers, who should have to face the consequences for failing to do their jobs. But the media wants to look beyond that and make this tragedy a call for stricter gun control. The focus should be on the law enforcement officers who didn't put their arsenals to use when they were needed.

Predictions