Parkland Survivors Sue County for Violating Their Civil Rights
Parkland Massacre Survivors Sue County for Allegedly Violating Their Civil Rights
Several Parkland, Fla. shooting survivors have filed a federal lawsuit against Broward County, the school’s superintendent and members of the local law enforcement, claiming they didn’t protect the students.
According to the lawsuit, several school and county officials violated the students’ constitutional rights when they failed to properly safeguard Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14.
Four of the five counts in the lawsuit have to do with the school resource officer Scot Peterson’s behavior before the shooting. The lawsuit claims he conducted a search of several students’ backpacks just a few hours before the incident and took $200 from one student he accused of selling drugs.
The lawsuit also alleges that Broward County Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie and Broward Sheriff Scott Israel of not improving safety conditions at the school. It alleges that they both know about the current conditions and didn’t do anything about it.
“The allegations in this complaint — many of which have been publicly known for some time — paint a shocking image of one missed opportunity after another on the part of the defendants,” Solomon Radner, one of the attorneys representing the survivors, said in a statement.
“I can’t help but think had the defendants seized on one — ONE — of these missed opportunities to stop the shooter in his tracks, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School might have been the name of just another school instead of being synonymous with ‘mass shooting,’” he added.
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