Families of victims killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting say they have reached an agreement with the company that made the murder weapon.
The Dec. 14, 2012, shooting left 20 students and six educators dead. Two years later, relatives of victims sued the Remington Arms Company in a Connecticut court. They alleged that the manufacturer marketed and sold assault rifles to civilians, “prioritizing profit over public safety.” Now, according to court documents and the plaintiffs themselves, that suit appears to be coming to a close.
In a news release, the plaintiffs said they won two big concessions in the settlement. First, the gunmaker’s insurance companies are paying $73 million — the full amount of coverage available. Second, they won access to and will make public thousands of pages of internal documents that they say will “prove Remington’s wrongdoing and carry important lessons for helping to prevent future mass shootings.”
At a news conference Tuesday morning, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Joshua Koskoff, said the case was about both greed and the marketing of the gun to civilians. He said the “AR-15 was not used by a highly trained soldier, but by a deeply troubled kid.”
Jury selection in the case was set to begin this September. But now, according to the filing signed by Koskoff, there’s a request for a hearing to have the case withdrawn.
An initial settlement was offered to the plaintiffs last July. The defense sent “an offer of compromise” to the estates of nine of the victims in a deal worth about $33 million — $3.66 million to each party. This agreement more than doubles that number.
