Families of 16 of the 17 people killed in the 2018 Parkland massacre have reached a settlement with the U.S. government to the reported tune of $127.5 million.
The families had sued for the FBI’s failure to stop the murderer even though the agency had received information he intended to attack.
“Although no resolution could ever restore what the Parkland families lost, this settlement marks an important step toward justice,” lead attorney Kristina Infante said in a statement.
About five weeks before the February 14, 2018, massacre, the FBI received a tip from an anonymous caller saying the Parkland murderer was planning to “slip into school and start shooting the place up.”
“I know he’s going to explode,” the caller told the FBI.
But the FBI never acted to stop the killer because the information was reportedly never forwarded to the FBI’s South Florida office.
SEE ALSO: Pro-Gun Student Gets $35K Settlement from School that Infringed on Her 1A Rights
Andrew Pollack, whose 18-year-old daughter Meadow died in the massacre, praised the FBI for accepting responsibility and changing their policies. Unlike the Broward county school district and sheriff’s office, school security staff and psychologists who treated the shooter, “the FBI has made changes to make sure this never happens again,” Pollack said.
In his excellent 2019 book, “Why Meadow Died,” Pollack leveled a scathing criticism against local Broward County officials for failing to intervene before the killer committed the atrocity, and then blaming gun owners and the NRA for the attack.
“After my sister Meadow was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the media obsessed for months about the type of rifle the killer used. It was all clickbait and politics, not answers or justice. That wasn’t good enough for us,” Meadow’s brother, Hunter Pollack, says in the book’s Forward. “If one single adult in the Broward County school district had made one responsible decision about the Parkland shooter, then my sister would still be alive.”
SEE ALSO: Hogg on Spike in Gun Sales: ‘I think it’s about fear’
In October, families of the victims reached a $25 million settlement with the Broward County school district.
The killer is facing 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.
At a hearing in October, the 19-year-old pleaded guilty to all charges, but he seemed to blame his pot addiction for the deadly attack.
“I hate drugs and I believe this country would do better if everyone would stop smoking marijuana and doing all these drugs and causing racism and violence out in the streets,” he said.
A jury will decide whether he is sentenced to death or life in prison.
The pot made me do it. Reefer madness?
While this is a start, why the Broward County Sheriff’s office isn’t included in this is perplexing. Of all the organizations involved in the failure to stop this, they were the most prominent from the beginning, ignoring complaints or not following thru with them, to their deputy standing by outside with his gun drawn as the shooter killed people inside. They should be paying much, much more than the FBI. By the way, Andrew Pollock’s book ; How Meadow Died’ is a very good, but very tough read. You find out all that happened before the shooting..It will tug at your heart strings and made me mad as hell. This event was so preventable but liberalism was put above student safety.
The FBI did nothing to stop the killer because they were much too busy going after parents that want a say in their childrens’ education.
While I sympathize with the families but not to the tune of 127.5 million , this government is out of control stupid.
To me, these massive payouts seem like a Biden/DOJ anti-2A scheme.