Families of Uvalde School Shooting Victims Announce $2M Settlement with City

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed in the massacre at Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022

Family members of some of the victims of the Uvalde school shooting have reached a $2 million settlement with the city.

The city of Uvalde will pay the amount to the families of 17 children who were killed and two children who were wounded during the deadly May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School, lawyers for the families said, per CBS News.

“It has been an unbearable two years,” Javier Cazares, the father of 9-year-old victim Jacklyn Cazares, said at a Wednesday news conference, CNN reported. “We all know who took our children’s lives, but there was an obvious systemic failure out there on May 24. The whole world saw that."

He added, “No amount of money is worth the lives of our children. Justice and accountability has always been my main concern. We’ve been let down so many times, that time has come to do the right thing."

The City of Uvalde wrote in a statement that it was “thankful to join the victims’ families in arriving at an agreement that will allow us to remember the Robb Elementary tragedy while moving forward together as a community to bring healing and restoration to all those affected," per CNN. "We will forever be grateful to the victims’ families for working with us over the past year to cultivate an environment of community-wide healing that honors the lives and memories of those we tragically lost. May 24th is our community’s greatest tragedy.”

Related: Vigils Held in Uvalde and Across Texas for School Shooting Victims: 'Our Hearts Are Broken'

On May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old armed with a DDM4 V7 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition walked into the school and then entered a classroom and locked himself inside, killing 19 students and two teachers.

The pain of the Uvalde parents and community was compounded by the revelation that it took law enforcement 77 minutes to breach the classrooms and kill the shooter after the initial shots were fired. The slow response later led to the firing of Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pete Arredondo.

Related: Grieving Uvalde Mom Says Guns Are 'More Important' Than Children in America, 1 Year After Shooting

The lawyers for the families also said that as part of the settlement, the city would make changes to the police department, such as requiring better training for its officers and hiring more skilled officers, per the The New York Times.

The city also agreed to provide mental health services for surviving victims and victims' families, properly take care of the cemetery grounds where many of the children are buried and build a permanent memorial to the victims. The city will also mark May 24 as an annual an annual Day of Remembrance, according to the Times.

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On Wednesday, the families also announced a lawsuit against 92 Texas Department of Public Safety officers, the school district and employees, per CNN.

"Law enforcement did not treat the incident as an active shooter situation, despite clear knowledge that there was an active shooter inside," according to the lawyers for the families, per CBS News.

The lawyers added, "The shooter was able to continue the killing spree for over an hour while helpless families waited anxiously outside the school."

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