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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 6 months ago

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Several Uvalde families are suing Daniel Defense, the gun company whose AR-15 style rifle an 18-year-old gunman used to kill 19 children and two teachers and injure several others at Robb Elementary two years ago, lawyers said.

The family members of victims Friday also filed a separate lawsuit against California-based companies Meta — the parent company of Instagram and Facebook — and Activision, whose best-selling video game Call of Duty features Daniel Defense guns.

The lawsuits together will argue that the three companies marketed semi-automatic weapons to the Uvalde gunman before he was 18, accusing them of negligence and wrongful death. The shooter purchased firearms shortly after he turned 18 years old and then used one of those guns to carry out the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.

In Texas, 18-year-olds can legally purchase long guns such as rifles.

Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing the Uvalde families, says there was a direct line between the companies' conduct and the Uvalde shooting.

“Just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, the Uvalde shooter bought an AR-15 made by a company with a market share of less than one percent,” Koskoff said in a statement. “Why? Because, well before he was old enough to purchase it, he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it.”

The lawsuits come on the two-year anniversary of the shooting.

Attorneys argue that Daniel Defense intentionally markets its weapons to adolescents and uses platforms including Instagram and first-person shooter games like Call of Duty to promote criminal use of their weapons.

They add that Instagram provides an unsupervised channel to speak directly to adolescent boys because of what attorneys say are flimsy and easily circumvented rules meant to prohibit firearm advertising to children.

The lawsuit against Daniel Defense is expected to be filed in Texas’ 38th District Court in Uvalde County on behalf of 31 family members of the victims. It accuses Daniel Defense of courting the shooter with marketing that lures adolescents into forming an attachment with its brand of AR-15s, particularly its flagship DDM4v7.

The lawsuit against Activision and Meta was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on behalf of approximately 45 family members of the deceased and injured victims. It accuses the gaming company of desensitizing young men to acts of mass violence and grooming them to seek out weapons like those featured in Call of Duty. An Activision spokesperson did not respond to questions about the allegations in the lawsuit but issued a statement expressing their condolences to the victims’ families.

“The Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence,” the spokesperson said. “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”

However, the Entertainment Software Association, which represents top publishers in the gaming industry, denounced efforts to blame video games for real-life acts of violence.

“We are saddened and outraged by senseless acts of violence,” said an association spokesperson. “At the same time, we discourage baseless accusations linking these tragedies to video gameplay, which detract from efforts to focus on the root issues in question and safeguard against future tragedies. Many other countries have similar rates of video gameplay to the United States, yet do not see similar rates of gun violence.”

Representatives for Daniel Defense and Meta did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

While Instagram prohibits the marketing of firearms on its platform, the lawsuit claims Instagram fails to enforce firearm guidelines while rigorously enforcing other types of content guidelines.

The Uvalde families’ legal action appears to follow a similar playbook that Koskoff, a Connecticut attorney, successfully employed in his home state, where he helped victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting win a $73 million settlement in a lawsuit against the maker of the AR-15 style rifle used in that school shooting.

That settlement was widely considered a setback for the firearms industry, which has broad legal immunity from civil complaints. A 2005 law enacted by Congress shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed using their weapons. Koskoff’s team worked around that by successfully arguing that the gun company could be sued under a consumer protection state law, through an exception to the federal law.

Over the course of the Connecticut case, documents came out through the discovery process showing that gun company Remington has a licensing agreement with Activision. It is not clear if such an agreement exists between Daniel Defense and Activision.

A 2019 Instagram post from Daniel Defense says “Call of Duty Modern Warfare launched today” and shows a photo of the type of rifle used in the Uvalde shooting.

Other Instagram posts from Daniel Defense show videos of young men actively firing the company’s rifle. A 2020 Instagram post shows an image of someone taking a gun out of the trunk of their car and the words “refuse to be a victim.”

“Gun companies like Daniel Defense don’t act alone,” Koskoff said. “AR-15s were available when many of us were growing up, but we didn’t have mass shootings by kids. What has changed is that companies like Instagram and Activision do more than just allow gun companies to reach consumers–they underwrite and mainstream violence to struggling adolescents.”

This is not the first lawsuit families have filed against Daniel Defense. Uvalde victims’ families previously filed two lawsuits against the Georgia-based gun manufacturer, alleging that the company intentionally marketed its AR-15 rifles to young males in ways that “encourage the illegal and dangerous misuse” of its weapons.

Daniel Defense has sought to dismiss those lawsuits, which were filed in federal court and remain ongoing.

In the two years since the Robb Elementary School shooting, state and local law enforcement officers have been heavily criticized for their response to the massacre. Hundreds of law enforcement officers descended upon the school and waited for more than an hour to confront the gunman, who shot indiscriminately inside two fourth grade classrooms.

The botched response was the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice report and a scathing Texas House Committee investigation. A grand jury convened by Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell could determine whether any federal, state and local officers are criminally charged.

On Wednesday, Uvalde families — represented by Koskoff — filed a lawsuit against 92 Texas Department of Public Safety Officers. They also announced a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde. During a press briefing on the day of that announcement, Koskoff foreshadowed that additional lawsuits would be filed on behalf of Uvalde families, including some lawsuits focusing on the time period before the shooting.

“There has been, appropriately, so much of a focus on law enforcement,” Koskoff told reporters earlier this week. “And, I think it’s appropriate to remember that they are at the end of the road.”

Koskoff noted that the 610-page DOJ report included “not a single page on why the shooting happened in the first place.”

The number of semi-automatic rifles, which include AR-15s, produced or imported in the U.S. have increased significantly since the 1990s. AR-15-style rifles weren’t used in mass shootings until 2007, according to a database kept by Mother Jones. In 2022, gunmen used an AR-15 rifle in 67% of the 12 massacres that year.

The AR-15 was designed in the late 1950s as a military-style rifle.

Officers who responded to the Robb Elementary School shooting feared the rifle and decided to not immediately confront the gunman, a Texas Tribune investigation found. Officers instead waited for a Border Patrol SWAT team based 60 miles away to arrive.

Uvalde families pushed the state Legislature to pass a bill to raise the minimum age for buying certain semi-automatic rifles from 18 to 21. That bill failed to pass in the Republican-controlled Legislature that has spent years loosening gun laws, making it easier for Texans to get guns in a state whose residents have a strong fealty to the Second Amendment.

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dankusner · 6 months ago

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Uvalde shooting victims sue Meta, video game company

Exactly two years after the Uvalde school massacre, families of victims Friday filed multiple state lawsuits in California and Texas against social media giant Meta, Activision — the maker of the popular video game "Call of Duty" — and Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the AR-15 which the teen gunman used in the shooting.

The wrongful death lawsuits come just two days after the same group of 19 families reached a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde over the May 24, 2022, Robb Elementary School massacre, which killed 19 students and two teachers.

One of the two lawsuits was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court against both Activision and Meta – Instagram's parent company.

The second lawsuit, against Daniel Defense, was filed in Uvalde District Court.

The lawsuits were filed by attorney Josh Koskoff, who is also representing the same 19 families who were part of Wednesday's $2 million settlement.

Friday's lawsuits claim that Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense have been "partnering…in a scheme that preys upon insecure, adolescent boys," attorneys said in a news release.

Attorneys claim that Meta and Activision "enabled and emboldened firearm manufacturers' efforts to expand the market for their weapons by granting unprecedented, direct and 24/7 access to children."

The lawsuits allege that the gunman, on his 18th birthday, purchased the AR-15 used in the Uvalde shooting because "he was targeted and cultivated online by Instagram, Activision and Daniel Defense. This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it," Koskoff said in a statement.

According to the lawsuits, the Uvalde gunman downloaded "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" in November 2021, and had been playing previous iterations of "Call of Duty" since he was 15 years old.

The video game prominently features a model of the AR-15, known as DDM4V7, that was used in the shooting, the lawsuits allege.

"Simultaneously, on Instagram, the shooter was being courted through explicit, aggressive marketing," attorneys said. "In addition to hundreds of images depicting and venerating the thrill of combat, Daniel Defense used Instagram to extol the illegal, murderous use of its weapons."

On April 27, 2022, attorneys say, the gunman created an account with Daniel Defense and added a DDM4V7 to his online cart.

Then on May 16, 2022, just 23 minutes after midnight on his 18th birthday, he purchased the weapon — just eight days before the Uvalde shooting.

In an interview with CBS News Friday, Koskoff said that the two lawsuits are "working in concert with each other."

"Instagram creates a connection between …an adolescent …and the gun and a gun company," Koskoff said. "And nobody exploited Instagram for this purpose more than Daniel Defense. If Instagram can prevent people from posting pictures of their private parts, they can prevent people from posting pictures of an AR-15. And of course, Instagram doesn't care. They don't care. All they care about is driving traffic and generating attention, drawing attention and getting their ad revenue."

In a statement provided to CBS News, an Activision spokesperson said the "Uvalde shooting was horrendous and heartbreaking in every way, and we express our deepest sympathies to the families and communities who remain impacted by this senseless act of violence. Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts."

The same group of families also said Wednesday they are filing a $500 million federal lawsuit against nearly 100 state police officers who took part in the botched law enforcement response to the shooting, along with former Robb Elementary School principal Mandy Gutierrez and Pete Arredondo, the school district's police chief who was fired months after the shooting.

Lawsuits flooded courthouses ahead of Uvalde shooting anniversary

On the second anniversary of the Robb Elementary School shooting, families of victims and survivors filed a lawsuit accusing Instagram, the creator of the video game "Call of Duty" and a gun manufacturer of driving an 18-year-old high school dropout to carry out the rampage.

The complaint accuses the companies of an forming an "unholy trinity" over the last 15 years "that preys upon insecure, adolescent boys," according to a news release.

The lawsuit targets Meta, parent company of Instagram, Activision, maker of "Call of Duty," and Daniel Defense of Georgia, which manufactured the assault-style rifle the gunman used to kill 19 fourth graders and two teachers and wound others on May 24, 2022 in Uvalde.

"Meta and Activision, through products that count millions of teenagers and pre-teens as users, have enabled and emboldened firearm manufacturers’ efforts to expand the market for their weapons by granting unprecedented, direct and 24/7 access to children," attorneys said.

The lawsuit — filed by Connecticut lawyer Josh Koskoff and the San Antonio law firm Guerra LLP —was among at least 10 filed in Uvalde state court and Del Rio federal court this week as lawyers rushed to beat a two-year statute of limitations on some claims.

The new wave of litigation blames dozens of companies, public institutions and individuals for the massacre and law enforcement's botched response.

Some lawsuits were brought by families who had a loved one killed, injured or traumatized inside the two interconnected classrooms where the gunman carried out his rampage.

Others were filed by teachers or parents of students who were in other areas of the school during the shooting.

At least one of the suits targets the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, blaming administrators, teachers and even janitors for missteps that allowed the shooter to enter the school through unlocked doors and fed the confusion that prevailed during and after the massacre.

Another names as defendants the shooter's estate and members of his family, including the grandmother he gravely wounded minutes before carrying out the school shooting.

The lawsuit also targets Motorola Solutions, maker of the radios and other communications equipment used by local officers;

Schneider Electric, manufacturer of the school's door locks;

and Raptor Technologies, maker of the crisis alert system the school district used until April of this year, when it switched to another company.

Some of the suits go after Daniel Defense and Oasis Outback, the Uvalde gun store that handled the gun transfer.

The shooter bought the rifle online; a transfer is required for internet gun sales.

The suits also pursue claims against police agencies that responded to the shooting and, in some cases, individual officers, such as the school district's then-police chief, Pedro "Pete" Arredondo, who was widely considered the on-scene commander.

The Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas Rangers, which is an arm of DPS, are named in at least four lawsuits.

Attorney Josh Koskoff speaks during a press conference held at the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center on Wednesday, May 22, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas, a couple days before the 2-year mark of the mass shooting that killed 19 fourth-graders and two teachers.

The city of Uvalde has agreed to a $2 million settlement with 19 families of victims killed or injured in the 2022 Robb Elementary mass shooting.

But only one so far targets any of the federal agencies that arrived at the school that day.

Attorney Justin Williams of Corpus Christi sued the Border Patrol on behalf of teachers and parents of students who were at Robb that day but not in either of the classrooms with the shooter.

A Border Patrol tactical unit confronted and killed the gunman more than an hour after he entered the school.

Nearly 400 local, county and state law enforcement officers stood by for 77 minutes while fourth-graders and their teachers were trapped with the gunman.

Officers waited even after learning that at least two children had called 911 from inside the classrooms pleading for help.

Koskoff announced on Wednesday a $2 million settlement with the city of Uvalde over its officers' response the day of the shooting.

He said he and other attorneys are close to finalizing a separate $2 million settlement with Uvalde County over its deputies' response.

His team filed one of the suits against DPS, the Texas Rangers and the companies that provided services to the school district.

Koskoff, who handled successful lawsuits against a gun manufacturer over the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, said next up will be a lawsuit targeting the federal government.

"We had over 150-some odd federal officers that also were there and stood around during the 77 minutes until one or more reached the shooter," he said.

This week's filings added to a growing tangle of Robb shooting-related litigation.

At least four federal lawsuits were filed in 2022 against a spate of parties, including Daniel Defense, the city of Uvalde, Uvalde County, the Uvalde school district, police agencies and individual officers, including Arredondo, and former Uvalde police Lt. Mariano Pargas.

LAWSUIT FILING

Lawsuit:

Uvalde shooter faithfully reenacted ‘Call of Duty’ scenario

Faith Mata spends time at her sister Tess Mata’s gravesite at Hillcrest Cemetery on Friday afternoon, May 24, 2024, in Uvalde, Texas.

Friday marked two years since Tess and 20 other people were killed by an 18-year-old gunman inside Robb Elementary School.

The teenage gunman who slaughtered 21 people at a Uvalde elementary school in 2022 was acting out elements of a “Call of Duty” video game, using a rifle, an aiming device and even a line of dialogue featured in the game, according to a lawsuit filed on behalf of the victims’ families.

Eight days before the May 24, 2022, massacre at Robb Elementary School, the 18-year-old went online to buy a Daniel Defense DDM4V7S semi-automatic rifle, the same model featured on the title page of “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,” a video game he played obsessively, the lawsuit says.

As depicted in the game, the rifle is equipped with an EOTech sight, a sophisticated optical device developed for U.S. special operations forces.

The shooter, determined “to replicate this weapon for use in his attack,” purchased the same sight and used it at Robb Elementary, the suit contends.

He also searched online for a smoke grenade, a second rifle sight and other accessories featured in the game, according to the suit.

“The Shooter tracked down items for which he had no need … because of their connection to ‘Call of Duty,’ ” the complaint states, adding that the teenager went so far as to borrow a scripted line from the video game.

“When the Shooter entered Classroom 112, he approached one of the teachers, said 'good night,' and shot her in the head,” according to the suit. “‘Good night’ is a catch phrase from ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.’

Captain Price, a famous and recurring character in the franchise, is known to say ‘good night’ when the player kills an enemy.”

Nineteen fourth-graders and two teachers were killed in the shooting.

The lawsuit names as defendants Activision, publisher of the “Call of Duty” game franchise; its parent company, Microsoft; Instagram and its corporate parent, Meta Platforms Inc. (formerly Facebook); and other individuals and businesses.

The complaint was filed in state court in California, where Activision and Meta are headquartered.

It was part of a renewed flurry of civil litigation launched last week as the second anniversary of the massacre approached.

The plaintiffs filed separate suits in Texas against Georgia-based Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the assault rifle; the Uvalde gun store where the shooter picked up his online purchases; the Texas Department of Public Safety, whose officers responded to the shooting; the Uvalde school district; and numerous other parties.

The 115-page complaint against Activision and Instagram contends that the two companies and Daniel Defense formed “an unholy trinity” to market combat weapons to isolated, insecure adolescent boys, even though they knew doing so would increase the risk of mass shootings.

In a statement, Activision expressed sympathy for those affected by the “horrendous and heartbreaking” Robb Elementary shooting, but added, “Millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”

Meta and Daniel Defense have offered no public response to the lawsuit.

Attorney Josh Koskoff outlines litigation he has filed on behalf of families of the victims of the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde.

The suit was filed by Koskoff Koskoff & Bieder, a Connecticut law firm that negotiated a $73 million settlement on behalf of the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a 20-year-old gunman.

The settlement was with Remington, the manufacturer of the Bushmaster rifle used by the killer.

At Sandy Hook, the shooter also was a devoted player of “Call of Duty,” and, like his Uvalde counterpart, he carried out his massacre with an assault rifle and while wearing tactical gear, the lawsuit says.

The Uvalde shooter downloaded “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” in November 2021, seven months before the Robb Elementary shooting.

The game featured the Daniel Defense DDM4V7 on its opening title page, the lawsuit says.

The suit accuses Instagram of allowing Daniel Defense and other weapons manufacturers to circumvent its formal restrictions on gun advertising to flood users’ feeds with images glorifying gun violence.

According to the suit, Daniel Defense has posted on Instagram images of a man dressed as Santa Claus holding an assault rifle, of a father at a shooting range with a young boy who is aiming an assault rifle and of a mother with a boy standing behind a rifle scope.

“In one particularly memorable, and disturbing, example, Daniel Defense posted an image of a toddler holding an assault rifle with the biblical caption: ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it,'” the complaint says.

“That image was posted on May 16 (2022), the same day the Uvalde shooter purchased his assault rifle from Daniel Defense, and eight days before” the massacre.

The teenager “had an unhealthy, likely obsessive, relationship with Instagram” and had at least 20 different accounts on the social media platform, the suit says.

On a day when Daniel Defense promoted the DDM4V7 on Instagram, he opened the Instagram app on his phone more than 100 times, the suit contends.

Kimberly Mata-Rubio listens as lawyer Josh Koskoff describes civil litigation he has filed on behalf of families of the victims of the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. Mata-Rubio's daughter, Alexandria "Lexi" Rubio, 10, was among the victims.

The complaint seeks both compensatory and punitive damages.

It accuses Activism of negligence in its development and marketing of “Call of Duty” and of knowingly making and marketing a defective product.

The plaintiffs allege that Meta turned a blind eye to the “illegal, unlawful, and wrongful marketing of firearms to minors.”

The police response to the Robb Elementary shooting has spawned a separate string of lawsuits, as well as bitter recriminations in Uvalde, a city of 15,000 about 80 miles west of San Antonio.

Nearly 400 officers from two dozen local, state and federal agencies responded to the incident, but it took 77 minutes before a column of officers led by a Border Patrol tactical unit stormed the classroom and killed the shooter.

Some of the victims bled to death waiting for police to rescue them, a U.S. Justice Department review found.

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