Victims of a mass shooting at a Las Vegas country music festival said Monday (US time) they were outraged when they learned they were being sued by the company that owns the hotel where the gunman opened fire.
Jason McMillan, a 36-year-old Riverside County sheriff’s deputy who was shot and paralyzed, said he can’t believe MGM officials would try to foist blame onto anyone but themselves.
“I just can’t believe the audacity,” McMillan said at a press conference in Southern California where survivors, victims’ relatives, and attorneys railed against the decision to file lawsuits against hundreds of victims.
“I’m not just a victim from the concert. I’m a survivor, and they’re not going to get away with anything. We’ll keep this going as long as it takes,” McMillan said.
MGM Resorts International sued victims in at least seven states last week in a bid to get federal courts to declare the company has no liability for the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
In October, high-stakes gambler Stephen Paddock killed 58 people and injured hundreds at the festival by firing into the crowd from his room at the Mandalay Bay casino-resort in Las Vegas. Paddock then killed himself.
MGM’s lawsuits, which target victims who have threatened to sue or who have sued the company and voluntarily dismissed their claims, argue that that the shooting qualifies as an act of terrorism and that federally certified security services were used at the concert venue, which is also owned by MGM.
After 9/11, the U.S. enacted a law giving companies a way to limit their liability if their federally certified products or services failed to prevent a terror attack.
