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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Parents of Slain Students Reach $11M Settlement

DANBURY, Conn. (CN) - The parents of two first-graders gunned down in one the deadliest mass shootings in the United States offered to settle with public officials.

Adam Lanza murdered 20 children and six educators in the Dec. 14, 2012, shooting, making it the second-deadliest attack in the country at the time, after the 2007 rampage at Virginia Tech, which took 32 lives, not including the gunman's.

With 49 victims this week in Orlando after yet another mass shooting, the parents of Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner agreed to settle their complaint against the Newtown, Connecticut, school board for $5.5 million apiece.

Scarlett Lewis, Neil Heslin and Leonard Pozner filed their offer of compromise Monday, but there is no indication yet that Newtown will accept it. The parents had detailed numerous problems with Sandy Hook Elementary School's security plan in their January 2015 complaint.

Key on their list were classroom doors that locked only from the outside and the lack of bulletproof glass near the main entrance of the school, which the gunman shot through without issue.

After getting into the school the gunman, Lanza "shot down the hallway at the principal and other staff at this time and killed the principal and the school psychologist who had exited conference room 9 at the end of the hallway to see what the loud banging (gunfire) noises were," the complaint states.

When Lanza entered the two first-grade classrooms, "no doors had been locked, none of the children had been moved to a safe location, like the bathroom located inside both of these classrooms; bathrooms which could be locked from the inside," the lawsuit against Newtown continues.

School officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The trial wasn't scheduled to start until next August, according to the court docket.

Norwalk-based attorney Donald Papcsy filed the complaint for these children's estates.

The lawsuit is separate from the one filed by nine victims' families and a survivor, which takes aim at Remington Arms, maker of the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle, model XM15-E2S; as well as the distributor and seller.

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