Uvalde Reaches $2m Settlement with Families of Robb Elementary Shooting Survivors, Victims

Ryan J. Farrick — June 14, 2024

Image of casing on ground. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Kristina Overton). Public domain.

Aside from paying compensation to victims’ families, the city will commit to revising its police department, create a permanent memorial, and distribute an estimated $2 million in settlement proceeds.v

Uvalde officials have announced that they have reached a $2 million settlement with the parents of many of the children injured or killed by a mass shooter at Robb Elementary School in 2022.

According to The New York Times, the tentative agreement was announced by attorneys for the plaintiffs earlier this week. Aside from paying compensation to victims’ families, the city will commit to revising its police department, create a permanent memorial, and distribute an estimated $2 million in settlement proceeds.

If approved, the settlement will close many Uvalde families’ pending claims against the city: the Times notes that the agreement provides compensation for 17 families of children killed in the attack, as well as two families of children who were seriously injured.

However, the apparent resolution of this particular lawsuit will not end every plaintiffs’ fight for accountability. Attorneys have since indicated that they plan to refile a complaint against the Texas Department of Public Safety, which—along with the Uvalde Police Department—has been blamed failing to coordinate an efficient and effective law enforcement response to the shooting.

Although local police officers were on-site less than three minutes after Salvador Ramos opened fire on Robb Elementary staff and students, they retreated after the 18-year-old shooter turned his weapon on them.

A gavel. Image via Wikimedia Commons via Flickr/user: Brian Turner. (CCA-BY-2.0).

After fleeing the school, Uvalde officers were joined outside by an influx of federal agents and state troopers. However, it took an hour and 14 minutes for law enforcement to breach the premises, confront Ramos within a barricaded classroom, and shoot him dead.

“These officers were so terrified that they chose to abandon their burden to the Uvalde community: [putting] themselves between a very dangerous person and a child,” said Josh Koskoff, an attorney for families party to the settlement.

Koskoff told The New York Times that, during settlement negotiations, city officials made it clear that the municipality could not afford to pay substantive damages—going so far as to tell him that his clients could “have all the insurance money.”

In the absence of additional compensation, though, Uvalde said that it would strive to make amends by focusing on what Koskoff has termed “restorative justice.” This includes the establishment of a memorial, the provision of mental health services to survivors and family members of the deceased, and varied procedural changes.

Uvalde’s political leadership has, for instance, acknowledged that its police department needs reform: as part of the agreement, the city promised to revise hiring agency hiring requirements to ensure that only officers with an appropriate combination of training and experience are put into positions of public trust.