(Reuters) -The city of Uvalde has reached a $2 million settlement with families of the victims of a 2022 mass shooting at a public school in the Texas city, one of their lawyers said on Wednesday, ahead of the second anniversary of the massacre.
In one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, 19 children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022, when a gunman entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde and barricaded himself inside adjoining classrooms with dozens of students.
A U.S. Justice Department review found that local police had ignored accepted practices by failing to confront the gunman, instead waiting outside the classroom for more than an hour despite calls for help from the children.
“The city of Uvalde has agreed to pay its insurance of $2 million, which is all that there was,” Josh Koskoff, who represented families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, said at a briefing to announce the agreement.
He said the settlement involved the families of 17 of the children who were killed and two children who survived.
Under the settlement, families agreed not to sue the city, Koskoff said. But families would sue the state of Texas and thefederal government over the response of their law enforcement officers to the massacre, he added.
State and federal officers made up the majority of the 376 law enforcement operatives who waited 77 minutes before confronting and killing the 18-year-old gunman, Koskoff said.
Families of the victims filed a lawsuit in December 2022 against local and state police, the city, and other school and law enforcement officials seeking at least $27 billion and class-action status for survivors over delays in confronting the attacker.
It was not immediately clear how the settlement would affect the earlier lawsuit.
At least two lawsuits have been filed against Daniel Defense, the Georgia-based company that made the AR-style rifle used by the gunman.
Families of the victims have called for criminal charges against officers involved in the stalled response.
Uvalde District Attorney Christina Mitchell has launched a criminal investigation into the incident and a grand jury was convened in January.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax and Andrew Hay; Edited by Frank McGurty and David Gregorio)
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