Survivors of Highland Park mass shooting sue gunman, gun manufacturer, distributor

CHICAGO (CBS) – Survivors of the July 4 mass shooting in Highland Park filed multiple lawsuits on Wednesday accusing a gun manufacturer, distributor, retailer, the alleged shooter, and his father of responsibility for the massacre in which seven people were killed and dozens more were injured.

The lawsuits, filed in Lake County Court, name Smith & Wesson, a gun manufacturing company; Bud’s Gun Shop, an online gun distributor; Red Dot Arms, an Illinois gun retailer; Robert Crimo III, the 21-year old suspect who has pleaded not guilty to over 100 charges related to the shooting; and his father Robert Crimo Jr. as defendants.

The plaintiffs claim that Smith & Wesson knowingly sought to sell its weapons to “disturbed young men by targeting and exploiting [their] risk-seeking – and often troubling – desires,” according to the lawsuit.

They also claim that Bud’s Gun Shop and Red Dot Arms allowed the alleged gunman to obtain his weapons despite a ban on such guns in Highland Park and Highwood.

Plaintiffs also accuse the alleged shooter’s father of allowing his son to acquire his weapons by sponsoring his FOID application. The alleged gunman had a history of threatening violence. In 2019, Highland Park Police responded to two calls about him: a suicide attempt that April, and a threat he made in September that he was going to “kill everyone,” according to police.

Among the plaintiffs were the estates of Nicolas Toledo, Steven Strauss, and Jacki Sundheim, who were all killed during the shooting, and more than 40 other people who were either shot or with loved ones who were shot.

The strategy mirrors the approach used by relatives of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook school killings, who in February reached a $73 million settlement with the firearm company that produced the rifle used in that attack. That was believed to be the largest payment by a gun-maker related to a mass killing.

The Sandy Hook families accused Remington of violating Connecticut consumer protection law by marketing its AR-15-style weapons to young men already at risk of committing violence, successfully circumventing federal law that has given gun-makers broad protection from past lawsuits.