HIGHLAND PARK, Ill. — Thursday, July 4, will mark the second Fourth of July since the Highland Park parade mass shooting. The ongoing search for accountability extends beyond the shooter.
One victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against the manufacturer of the gun used in the attack, the latest development in the never-ending search for a solution to the problem of mass shootings. Upset with inaction from Congress, victims and their families are turning to civil litigation (and the potential of financial losses) as a means to pressure gun makers to stop selling semi-automatic weapons.
For Karina Mendez, it’s been two years without her father, Eduardo Uvaldo.
“It’s been hard,” she said. “You think it gets easier as time goes, but it doesn’t.”
Calling her late father the glue that held the family together, she says something else has been missing amid her grief: accountability for her father’s death.
“We want to hold Smith & Wesson accountable for this,” Mendez said.
Alleged shooter Robert Crimo III awaits trial on 21 counts of first-degree murder. Crimo’s father pleaded guilty to helping his son apply for a firearm owner’s ID card. He served only half of his 60-day sentence for the misdemeanors.
In the meantime, Uvaldo’s family has pointed to what they see as the entity most responsible: the company that made and marketed the semi-automatic rifle: Smith & Wesson.
“We want them to be held accountable because they promote these guns to these young adults and make it seem like they’re cool,” Mendez said.
Crimo is accused of lying in wait atop a roof along the route of the 2022 Highland Park Independence Day parade, unleashing a barrage of bullets from his M&P15, an AR-style rifle, killing seven and injuring nearly 50 others.
Brian Hogan was at the parade with Uvaldo when the 69-year-old grandfather was shot in the head.
“They destroyed our family, you know?” Hogan said about the gun manufacturer. “It was my father-in-law. We want Smith & Wesson to be accountable for these weapons that they’re producing.”
In a lawsuit filed by the family on Friday in Lake County, lawyers argue: “Long before the Highland Park shooter fired, Smith & Wesson knew that their M&P15 was preferred by mass shooters.”
The suit also alleges that Smith and Wesson broke Illinois state consumer protection laws by promoting the lethal and criminal use of the weapon in ads, “mimicking the aesthetic of first person-shooter videogames” to appeal to people like Crimo.
The lawsuit points out the similarities in a side-by-side comparison of the Smith & Wesson M&P15 experience advertisement and the popular first-person shooter video game “Call of Duty.”
The filing outlines how the 172-year-old firearm manufacturer targeted young people using ads on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and YouTube.
In a written statement, Smith & Wesson’s CEO said: “Some now seek to prohibit firearm manufacturers and supporters of the 2nd Amendment from advertising products in a manner designed to remind law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutional right to bear arms … attempting to shift the blame to Smith & Wesson, other firearm manufacturers, and law-abiding gun owners … We will never back down in our defense of the 2nd Amendment.”
But victims say that argument puts firearms ahead of families.
Sophia Mendez is one of Uvaldo’s 16 grandchildren. She wrote a poem to remember him this Fourth of July: “In the tragedy’s wake, tears never dried. Each year, July 4th, a somber display, remembrance of loss in every way.”
Families of other victims of the Highland Park shooting are also suing Smith & Wesson. A federal law protects gun manufacturers from being held liable for mass shootings, but these suits allege the violation of state consumer protection laws.
The legal strategy has already been successful.
The families of those killed in the Sandy Hook shooting sued gunmaker Remington, which settled the case by paying $73 million to the families of nine of the victims.
“There’s nothing in this world that’s going to bring my dad back,” Mendez said. “We want to somehow avoid other families to live this pain that we’ve endured of the past two years.”
The Uvaldo family plans to attend a memorial for the shooting victims this Fourth of July, and then to celebrate the holiday just as Eduardo Uvaldo wanted them to – as a family.