NEWTOWN: Parents of almost half the young children killed by a gunman at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, two years ago yesterday have taken initial steps toward filing lawsuits tied to one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
For a second straight year the leafy suburb has planned no public events to commemorate the massacre, which left 20 first graders and six educators dead at Sandy Hook Elementary School, an incident that inflamed the US debate over gun control.
The parents of eight of the children killed in the December 14, 2012, carnage, which 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza ended by shooting himself dead as he heard police sirens approach, have notified Connecticut courts that they may file wrongful death lawsuits in state or federal court.
Their initial court filings, related to legal entities created in memory of their children, do not indicate who the families could target in their lawsuits, according to a chief court clerk for North Fairfield County Probate Court.
While the parents could not be reached for comment, a spokesman for Bridgeport law firm Koskoff, Koskoff and Bieder said that a lawyer at the firm had recently met with some of the Newtown parents about potential suits.
“Attorney Josh Koskoff has met with parents about legal action,” said Geraldo Parrilla, a legal assistant with the firm.
While Newtown grabbed the nation’s attention, school shootings remain common across the United States. Some 95 incidents, including fatal and nonfatal assaults, suicides and unintentional shootings have taken place across 33 states since Newtown, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a group created by the merger of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, founded by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a group founded after the attack.
Reuters
