August 17th 2023.
On Tuesday, sixteen people who had witnessed the white supremacist shooting at a Buffalo, New York grocery store last year filed a lawsuit against social media and firearms-related companies. These plaintiffs, who had not suffered any serious physical injuries, were suing to hold the defendants liable for causing them emotional trauma.
The suit was filed by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, and names YouTube, Reddit, Mean Arms, Vintage Firearms, RMA Armament, Alphabet and Google, and the parents of the gunman as defendants.
The plaintiffs--employees and customers of the store--described the mental anguish they felt as a result of the shooting. Fragrance Harris Stanfield, for example, was unable to return to her job at Tops or as a substitute teacher in Buffalo schools, and has had panic attacks at stores when she could not locate an exit. Another plaintiff, DennisJanee Brown, said she feels uneasy at work in the presence of white people. Rose Marie Wysocki has felt “enormous guilt and anger,” feeling as though she survived because she was white.
The complaint stated that the defendants had been negligent in allowing the gunman, Payton Gendron, to learn the information and gain access to the tools necessary for him to commit the mass shooting. Gendron, who was 18 years old at the time of the attack, was sentenced in February to life in prison without parole.
In response to the lawsuit, YouTube and Google said they had “deepest sympathies” for the victims and their families, and had invested over the years to find and remove extremist content. The lawyer for RMA Armament called the attack “reprehensible” and said RMA “condemns everything the shooter stood for.” The lawyer for Mean Arms declined to comment, while the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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