*A Japanese toy company and the family of the perpetrator of the Buffalo mass shooting are being sued by the families of four people killed in the grocery store massacre.
As reported by Wired, the lawsuit also names a slew of major internet companies and weapon vendors.
As we reported earlier, gunman Payton Gendron was heavily armed and wearing body armor when he carried out the deadly attack at Tops grocery on May 14, 2022. Gendron, a resident of Conklin, New York, traveled from his hometown, located 200 miles from Buffalo, to carry out the killings.
Ten people were fatally shot. Eleven of the victims were Black and two were white, according to police. Three people sustained non-life-threatening injuries during the shooting, per CNN. Gendron was detained by authorities without incident. He ultimately pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder as well as weapons and hate crime charges, per Wired.
Here’s more from Wired.com:
In a lawsuit filed Friday, the families name internet giants Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet, including social media they own; smaller platforms like Reddit and Snapchat; image board 4chan and its Japanese partner the Good Smile Company; three firearm companies; and the parents of the shooter, Payton Gendron.
“Gendron was motivated to commit his heinous crime by racist, anti-Semitic, and white supremacist propaganda fed to him by the social media companies whose products he used,” the lawsuit argues, per ABC News.
Buffalo attorney John Elmore filed the lawsuit on behalf of family members of Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, and Andre Mackniel, three of the 10 Black people who died in the massacre.
“I’m hoping that something will come out of it. Everyday or every few days, all you hear about is a mass shooting,” Massey’s sister, Barbara Massey Mapps, told ABC News of the lawsuit. “You’ve got to start somewhere, in order for them to get the message. These big companies only know one thing, money. So, you’ve got to hurt them. How many people do you want to see dead?”
There is no specific dollar amount set forth in the suit-the complaint states that the amount will be determined at trial.
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