Survivors of Buffalo supermarket shooting are suing social media, gun companies

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Sixteen survivors of a 2022 mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket filed a lawsuit Tuesday in New York's Erie County Supreme Court against social media companies, the manufacturers of the shooter's weapons and body armor and the shooter's parents.

The 22-count lawsuit alleges that Mean LLC, Vintage Firearms, RMA Armament, Alphabet and its subsidiaries Google and YouTube, Reddit and the parents of the shooter Paul and Pamela Gendron failed to act and prevent the mass shooting from occurring.

Eric Tirschwell, executive director for Everytown Law, the legal arm for nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety, said the case involves the intersection of racism, racial hatred and gun violence empowered by the "reckless practices by members of the gun industry." The defendants are being represented by Everytown Law; Ryder Law Firm; and the Law Offices of Bonner and Bonner.

"One of the important points we're making with this being a separate lawsuit is that the impact of shootings is much broader than those who are the loved ones of those killed or wounded," Tirschwell said. "Those people have the most severe impact, but we're making the point and legal precedent that showing that those who live through a mass shooting and suffer the lifelong trauma and impacts that come with that have legal standing to pursue legal remedies from companies and individuals that bare responsibility for the shooting."

California-based lawyer Charles Bonner said the survivors cannot erase the shooting from their minds.

"To not file a lawsuit, to do nothing, will encourage other racist people to freely go into a shopping mall, church, movie theater, a mall and just randomly kill people in the street with no recourse," he said.

Messages seeking comments were left with all defendants. A summons was issued for the parties Tuesday and the case has not yet been assigned to a judge as of Thursday.

These lawsuits follow a similar one that was filed in July by family members of those killed in the shooting and other survivors.

Tops Friendly Markets shoppers, employees sue various companies for negligence

The plaintiffs in the latest lawsuit include Tops employees Fragrance Harris Stanfield, Yahnia Brown-McReynolds, Tiara Johnson, Shonnell Harris-Teague, Rose Marie Wysocki, Curt Baker, Dana Moore, Patrick Patterson and Nasir Zinnerman; and Tops shoppers DennisJanee Brown, Schacana Geter, Shamika McCoy, Razz'ani Miles, Mercedes Wright, Quandrell Patterson and Von Harmon.

Tirschwell said Thursday all 16 were not wounded in the shooting but were "in the line of fire" and traumatized by the shooting.

"They're doing this because they don't want any other people to suffer and live with what they're living with," he said.

Everytown Law has helped survivors of Santa Fe High School, Robb Elementary School and Highland Park mass shootings sue the gun industry in the past. In February, the law firm reached a settlement agreement between Sante Fe survivors and ammunition seller Luckygunner to maintain age verification for ammunition sales.

Gun industry sued for products banned by New York laws, tactical gear

The lawsuit alleges MEAN Arms, a manufacturer of products for guns based in Georgia, "deceptively marketed and falsely advertised" its MEAN Arms lock as a product that brings banned weapons into compliance with New York law. The manufacturer's website lists a notice that the lock cannot be shipped to New York and is intended for AR-15 and AR-10 rifles. New York Attorney General Letitia James has also sued MEAN Arms LLC.

"MEAN Arms enabled the Shooter to acquire a type of gun that would not have been available to him—a Bushmaster XM-15 assault weapon—and equip it with removeable large-capacity magazines, which he used to inflict maximum carnage during his racist attack," according to the lawsuit.

RMA Armament, an Iowa-based body armor manufacturer, is accused of allowing the shooter to wear "combat-style" body armor that prevented him from being killed or wounded by the Tops security guard. It sells armor, helmets, plate carrier and tactical gear that ranges in protection from various gunshots.

YouTube, Reddit sued for having content about the gun industry, shooter's views

Tirschwell said he hopes naming the two social media companies in the lawsuit will make them take responsibility for the shooting.

According to the lawsuit, the survivors alleged that Alphabet, which is quoted as "the YouTube Defendants," have an addictive platform that allowed for the shooter to watch videos that ascribe to his beliefs and gave him the motivation to carry out the mass shooting. They further allege YouTube's algorithm and autoplay function were instrumental in promoting videos similar to what the shooting watched.

They alleged Reddit gave the shooter the same capabilities YouTube had, along with allowing specialized forums, commonly called subreddits, for the shooter to gain information relating to tactical gear.

Survivors finally allege in the lawsuit the shooters' parents enabled their son to plan and purchase items for the mass shooting knowing his history of threats and violent behavior. Tirschwell hoped including the parents would send a message that every parent has a role in preventing gun violence and could be held responsible if they fail to do so.

"Despite their awareness of the Shooter’s mental health problems and his access to at least one firearm, Paul and Pamela Gendron took no steps to limit the Shooter’s access to guns (as permitted by New York law) or otherwise intervene, investigate, or supervise him," according to the lawsuit.

What happened during the Buffalo mass shooting?

Payton Gendron was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole earlier this year after he pleaded guilty to more than a dozen charges, which included murder and domestic terrorism motivated by hate. He also faces federal hate crime charges and is expected to enter in a plea deal in exchange for life in prison, his attorney said in December.

The now-20-year-old gunman shot 13 people with a semiautomatic rifle at Tops Friendly Market in Buffalo on May 14. Three people survived from their injuries.

He had livestreamed the attack and wrote in documents posted online that he picked the grocery store because it was in a predominantly Black neighborhood.

Victims' ages ranged from 32 to 86 and included a church deacon, the grocery store's guard, a neighborhood activist, a man shopping for a birthday cake, a grandmother of nine children and the mother of a former Buffalo fire commissioner.

How does this differ from previous lawsuits?

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump and attorneys Biandra Zimmerman and Terry Connors filed a 171-page lawsuit in July against Alphabet and its subsidiaries; Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram; Reddit LLC; Amazon LLC, the owner of Twitch where the mass shooting was livestreamed; Discord LLC; Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat; and 4Chan LLC.

RMA Armament; Vintage Firearms; Jimay's Flea Market, where Gendron purchased a high-capacity magazine from a vendor; and MEAN Arms LLC were also named in that lawsuit.

The suit claims the shooter was isolated by "defective social media products" and then "became radicalized by overexposure to fringe, racist ideologies and was primed for the reckless and wanton conduct of the Weapons and Body Armor Defendants." Crump said Wednesday that although Gendron is the one who fired the weapon, "there were many people that helped him load that gun."

Families of mass shooting victims have sued gunmakers before. But lawsuits against the online platforms could face steep legal hurdles.

"Despite the integral nature of online platforms in this and previous mass shootings, however, it is extremely unlikely that any of them − even the worst offenders who enforce virtually no content moderation − can face any sort of legal liability," James' office wrote in a report in October on the Buffalo massacre, which recommended changes in federal and state laws governing the responsibilities of digital platforms.

An additional wrongful death lawsuit was filed Tuesday representing the estate of Celestine Chaney, who was killed in the mass shooting. Her son Wayne Donnel Jones, Sr. was appointed by the Erie County Surrogate Court as the administrator of Chaney's estate, according to the lawsuit.

The families of three victims, Andre Mackniel, 53; Katherine "Kat" MAssey, 72; and Heyward Patterson, 67; filed a similar 142-paged lawsuit this May against Meta, Alphabet, Discord, Reddit, Amazon, RMA Armament, MEAN Arms and the shooter's parents. They also alleged social media allowed the shooter to become radicalized and need to be held accountable, one of the attorneys John Elmore said in May.

Contributing: N'dea Yancey-Bragg and Gary Craig, USA TODAY

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Buffalo mass shooting survivors sue YouTube, Reddit: What to know