By Maria Ortiz
May 24, 2024, 10:41 PM EDT
Families of the Uvalde shooting victims filed multiple state lawsuits in California and Texas on Friday against social media giant Meta; Activision, the creator of the popular video game “Call of Duty”; and Daniel Defense, the manufacturer of the AR-15 that the teenage gunman used in the elementary school shooting.
The two complaints filed on Friday, exactly two years after the shooting at the Uvalde school, which killed 19 children and two teachers, state that, in their opinion, the defendants contributed to the training of the teenager who committed the attack. massacre and that he had at his disposal the weapons with which he carried it out.
The complaint against Meta and Activision was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, while the case against manufacturer Daniel Defense was filed in Uvalde District Court.
Activision is the company responsible for the popular war video game “Call of Duty.”
The attorney who filed these lawsuits, Josh Koskoff, also represented the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, in the state of Connecticut, and won a lawsuit in 2022 against gun manufacturer Remington.
In this new lawsuit, Koskoff argues that Daniel Defense uses the Instagram platform – belonging to Meta – and the video games created by Activision, to condition young people, like the Uvalde attacker, to see “weapons as a tool to solve their problems.”
Technology, the lawyer highlighted in a statement, not only allows weapons companies to connect with consumers, but also “promote and normalize violence” to an audience of “adolescents in difficulty.”
An Activision spokeswoman expressed in a statement released by The New York Times her “sympathies” with those affected, but noted that millions of people around the world enjoy video games without committing “horrendous acts.”
The demand received by that company and the other two coincides with the second anniversary of the shooting at Robb Elementary School, in which Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old young man, opened fire with an assault rifle, killing 21 people and wounding 17 others, most of them of Latin American origin.
This Wednesday, the victims’ relatives announced a settlement worth $2 million dollars with the Uvalde city government.
A report on the attack presented last January by the United States Attorney General, Merrick Garland, noted that It took 376 officers from at least five law enforcement agencies 77 minutes to arrest the attacker, a situation that uncovered “failure” and “lack of leadership, training and failed policies.”
The deal struck this week also includes improved training for Uvalde police officers, support for mental health services for families, survivors and community members, and the creation of a committee to coordinate with families on a memorial. permanent.
Keep reading:
• Two years after the massacre in Uvalde, Biden insists on restricting assault weapons
• City of Uvalde to pay $2 million to family members of school shooting victims
• Uvalde police chief resigns after report on Robb Elementary shooting is released