Families who lost children in the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting are not satisfied with the $2 million settlement the city of Uvalde, Texas, unanimously approved on Tuesday night.
Javier Cazares, whose daughter Jackie was murdered at the school, told the Associated Press that the sum will be split among the 21 families of the victims.
Nineteen fourth-graders and two teachers at Robb Elementary were shot by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos on May 24, 2022, making it one of the deadliest school shootings in US history.
Victims’ families told CNN that it wouldn’t seek a higher payout from Uvalde, not wanting the city they call home to go broke.
However, they are also suing other parties they feel were negligent in their failed response to the shooting, including the Texas state police.
Children trapped inside the school were desperately calling 911 while cops were right outside. Officers arrived at the scene just three minutes after Ramos opened fire, but they took well over an hour to execute a plan and kill the shooter.
The families’ lawsuit against the city will now require enhanced training for city police officers, while also expanding mental health services for families and kids in the Uvalde area.
As part of the settlement, the city also agreed to set May 24 as an annual day of remembrance and establish a permanent memorial in the city plaza.
Nearly three years after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in May 2022, the city of Uvalde has approved a $2 million settlement for the victims’ families
The police response to the shooting was heavily criticized because the nearly 400 police officers on the scene waited over an hour to confront and kill the perpetrator
Javier Cazares is pictured with his daughter Jackie, who was killed during what has become one of the worst school shootings in American history
‘This is a small win in a larger battle and a lot of injustice we are still going through,’ Cazares told the Associated Press. ‘I couldn’t care less about the money.’
The settlement between the families and Uvalde was first announced in May 2024 but was just voted on by the city council this week.
Uvalde Mayor Hector Luevano said the city’s settlement included ‘restorative justice initiatives for the families’ but didn’t offer any additional details. He also didn’t say why it took nearly a year for the $2 million to be officially approved.
The families also filed a $500 million lawsuit in federal court against Texas state police troopers and other officials in the department.
Two other suits – filed in Texas and California – have targeted Meta, the parent company of Instagram, and Activision, the maker of ‘Call of Duty,’ a first-person shooter game Ramos played frequently.
The suits contend that Meta and Activision ‘knowingly exposed’ Ramos to the AR-15 he used in his rampage. Also named in the legal action is Daniel Defense, the gun manufacturer for the AR-15 used by Ramos.
‘This three-headed monster knowingly exposed him to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as a tool to solve his problems and trained him to use it,’ the complaint said.
The families are also suing 92 officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Uvalde Consolidated School District, and individual employees.
Former Uvalde School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo is seen in the center inside Robb Elementary. He led the botched response
Both Arredondo (right) and Adrian Gonzales, another former school police officer, now face charges of child endangerment and abandonment. They are scheduled to go on trial this year
More than 370 police officers from agencies from the local, state and federal level waited 77 minutes before finally confronting the shooter. He was ultimately killed by US Border Patrol officers.
The extraordinarily sluggish response time has led to charges for two former Uvalde school police officers, Pete Arredondo and Adrian Gonzales.
A grand jury indicted both of them for child endangerment and abandonment. They pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to go on trial later this year.
Arredondo, the former school district police chief, was listed as the incident commander for the district’s active shooter response plan.
In an interview with investigators from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Arredondo appeared to admit that he chose not to engage with the shooter and allow more kids to be at risk.
‘Once I realized that was going on, my first thought is that we need to vacate. We have him contained – and I know this is horrible and I know it’s [what] our training tells us to do but – we have him contained, there’s probably going to be some deceased in there, but we don’t need any more from out here,’ he was heard saying in footage first obtained by CNN.
The decision went against the department’s protocol, which directs any armed officer on the scene of an active school shooter to engage, regardless of the risk to themselves.
Arredondo was one of the first to arrive at the school after the shooting began, and was armed with a handgun. He told investigators that he wanted to wait until officers with rifles were scene before attempting to engage Ramos.