It’s been roughly two years since the terrible massacre and shooting of numerous children who were students attending Sandy Hook Elementary in Newton, CT. Two families of first-graders killed in the attack brought wrongful-death claims against the town and the school district arguing that security measures were not adequate at Sandy Hook Elementary School, allowing Adam Lanza to enter the school and carry out the attack.
The two families have now offered to settle the case for $5.5 million each.
The offer, filed Monday, gives the town and the school district 30 days to accept or reject the settlement. Lawyers on both sides of the case refused to speak about the offer on Tuesday. The two sides are scheduled to be in court for a pretrial conference on June 28.
The parents of slain first-graders Jessie Lewis and Noah Pozner filed their wrongful-death suit against the town and school district following the slayings of 26 first-graders and educators in 2012.
Among the allegations in the lawsuit:
That 20-year-old gunman Adam Lanza was able to get past the locked front doors by shooting his way through a large plate-glass window.
That the school had practiced a lockdown and evacuation plan, but did not implement it during the shooting
That the school failed to train a substitute teacher about the lockdown procedure and did not give her a key to lock her room once she heard shots being fired. That teacher and all but one of her students were killed.
The parents of the slain students — Leonard Pozner and Scarlett Lewis — are involved in the higher-profile lawsuit against Remington, the maker of the AR-15-type rifle used by Lanza. That lawsuit has drawn national attention because it became a debate point in the Democratic presidential primary and because of its potential as a precedent-setting case.
A third lawsuit brought by 16 victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting against the estate of Lanza’s mother was settled in August. Those families received about $94,000 each.
Lanza shot his mother to death before driving to the Sandy Hook school, killing 20 students and six educators, and turning a handgun on himself.
The Lanza home was turned over to the town, which later had it demolished.