What is a class action lawsuit? Meaning explored as Uvalde shooting survivors sue entities and officials for $27 billion

On Tuesday, November 29, survivors of the mass shooting at Uvalde's Robb Elementary school filed a $27 billion class action lawsuit against various Texas Law Enforcement agencies.

A class action lawsuit, as defined by Investopedia, is a legal action in which multiple plaintiffs organize a proceeding in the interest of a larger group.

The recent Uvalde lawsuit is in response to what has been described as the failure of authorities to adequately deal with the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary school. In the incident, 19-year-old alleged gunman Salvador Rolando Ramos allegedly killed 21 people before being shot by the authorities.

CNN reported that the lawsuit was filed on the basis that authorities mishandled the situation, as they allegedly waited over an hour to confront and neutralize the shooter.

The defendants of the lawsuit include the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, the Uvalde School District Police Department, the Uvalde Police Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, as well as the city of Uvalde.

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Details of the Uvalde massacre lawsuit

The lawsuit claims that figures within law enforcement failed to follow the necessary protocol that is supposed to be applied to active shooter situations.

It read:

“(Officers) fundamentally strayed from conducting themselves in conformity with what they knew to be the well-established protocols and standards for responding to an active shooter.”

However, many officials, such as the recently fired the city's School District Police officer, Pete Arredondo, claimed that the long response times were necessary in order for authorities to formulate a proper plan.

Arredondo said:

"(We) took all reasonable actions to prevent further injuries or loss of life, as the active shooter protocol demands."

However, figures such as John Cohen, a former Homeland Security Official and ABC News consultant, said that Arredondo ultimately failed the community in terms of how he approached the situation. He also claimed that they had to contend with several locked doors, which supposedly impeded them.

Cohen said:

"At the end of the day, this chief was in command on the day that an individual was able to walk into a school and gun down 21 people including 19 kids. While there may have been issues with door locks and communication, at the end of the day, he owns it."

The notion that the locked doors were a genuine obstacle for authorities was denied by the lawsuit as well.

The lawsuit read:

“Instead of swiftly implementing an organized and concerted response to an active school shooter who had breached the otherwise ‘secured’ school buildings at Robb Elementary school, the conduct of the three hundred and seventy-six (376) law enforcement officials who were on hand for the exhaustively torturous seventy-seven minutes of law enforcement indecision, dysfunction, and harm, fell exceedingly short of their duty bound standards."

As per WPBF, the plaintiffs of the lawsuit include teachers, school staff, and parents of the survivors. A similar lawsuit was filed by other families in September.