The family of three people who were shot dead in 2014 outside Jewish facilities in Overland Park have filed lawsuits on Walmart over the sale of guns used in the shootings.
The family of William Corporon and his grandson, Reat Underwood, who were shot dead outside the Jewish Community Centre, filed suit on Tuesday in a Johnson county court, The Kansas City Star reported.
In two identical suits on behalf of each victim, they alleged that employees of a Walmart store in Republic, Missouri, were negligent when they sold a shotgun later used to kill Corporon and Reat.
“Gun dealers, including Walmart, owe a duty to use the highest standard of care to prevent the supply of firearms to those prohibited from possessing them,” they said in their suits.
Another suit against Walmart
On Monday, the family of Terri LaManno, who was killed outside Village Shalom care centre, filed a similar suit against Walmart, a gun store in Lebanon, Missouri, and the operators of a gun show where guns were purchased.
F. Glenn Miller Jr., a 75-year-old southern Missouri neo-Nazi, carried out the attacks on April 13, 2014, in an effort to kill as many Jews as possible. None of the victims was Jewish.
A Johnson county jury convicted Miller, also known as Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., last year. He was sentenced to death. Miller, who was a previously convicted felon, could not legally buy or possess firearms.
According to the lawsuits, he enlisted another southern Missouri man, John Mark Reidle, to purchase the weapons.
Federal prosecutors charged Reidle for falsely claiming on a federal form that he was purchasing guns for himself.
The suit alleges that Miller “initiated” the purchase, but then claimed he did not have any identification, and offered to have Reidle purchase the weapon, which he did.
“Given the circumstances of the purchase, Walmart should have taken affirmative steps to confirm that Miller was the actual purchaser and intended user of the Remington shotgun, and that the sale of the shotgun to Reidle, a straw buyer, was illegal,” according to the suits.
Four days later, Miller used that shotgun to shoot Corporon, 69, and Reat, 14, outside the Jewish Community Centre where Reat was participating in a singing competition.
Miller, 75, also used a semi-automatic rifle and handgun to fire at others before he drove to the nearby Village Shalom retirement centre.
There, he encountered 53-year-old LaManno, who was visiting her mother, a resident of Village Shalom.
According to trial testimony, he attempted to shoot her with the shotgun but it misfired. He then got another shotgun from his car trunk and shot LaManno.
That weapon was purchased from employees of Friendly Firearms from Lebanon at a Springfield gun show in October 2013, according to the suit filed by LaManno’s family.
A spokesman for Friendly Firearms said on Tuesday that he had not seen the suit and could not comment.
A spokesman for Walmart said the company expresses condolences to the families who lost loved ones, but that because company officials have not seen the suits they cannot comment on them.
Based on the remarks and behaviour of Reidle and Miller, employees of Friendly Firearms and Walmart “knew, had reason to know, or recklessly failed to know that Miller was not lawfully entitled to purchase or possess a firearm”, according to the suit.
“The Corporon family’s claims do not challenge law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights to purchase guns or law-abiding retailers rights to sell guns,” said attorney David Morantz who represents the family.
“These lawsuits seek to hold retailers accountable for adhering to long-established laws designed to prevent guns from ending up in the hands of dangerous criminals and designed to prevent tragedies like the shootings of April 13, 2014.”
