Family members of Uvalde school shooting victims announced a $2 million settlement Wednesday with the Texas city over the deadly rampage in 2022. The group also said it is filing lawsuits against dozens of Texas Department of Public Safety officers and the Uvalde school district.
The announcement comes almost two years after a teenage shooter killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb primary school. Law enforcement officers then killed the gunman in a classroom waiting more than an hour to confront him, which was heavily criticized in the aftermath of the shooting.
In the settlement announced Wednesday, the city of Uvalde will pay $2 million to the families of 17 children killed in the shooting and two children who survived, according to a statement from the families’ attorneys.
“Pursuing further legal action against the city could have plunged Uvalde into bankruptcy, something none of the families were interested in as they sought community healing,” the statement said.
The settlement also includes increased training for Uvalde police officers, mental health support for the families, survivors and community members, and the creation of a committee to coordinate with the families for a permanent memorial.
The families are also taking new legal action against 92 officials of the state’s Department of Public Security.
“Law enforcement did not treat the incident as an active shooter situation, despite the clear awareness that there was an active shooter inside,” Wednesday’s statement said. “…The gunman was able to continue the killing spree for over an hour as helpless families waited anxiously outside the school.”
A Justice Department report released in January called the police response a failure.
“If law enforcement had followed generally accepted practices … lives would have been saved and people would have survived,” Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters at the time.
