Family of Newtown Victim Noah Pozner Sues Town and School Board

By Reuters January 13, 2015

The families of two of the 20 students killed in a 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, are suing the town of Newtown, Connecticut and the local school board over alleged lax security, media reported on Monday.

The suit, served by the families of slain Noah Pozner and Jesse Lewis, said the town was negligent for not installing classroom doors that could be locked from the inside or bulletproof glass on the school’s front windows, the Hartford Courant newspaper reported.

Adam Lanza, 20, shot dead 20 first-graders and six educators in the attack on Dec. 14, 2012 – one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history.

The killings prompted a fresh debate on gun rights and last month the families of nine victims sued the maker of the gun that was used, an AR-15 assault weapon manufactured by Bushmaster, saying it should not have been sold to civilians.

After the Sandy Hook shooting, Connecticut’s Democratic governor, Dannel Malloy, pushed through one of the strictest gun laws in the United States, banning more than 100 types of military-style rifles and limiting ammunition magazines to 10 bullets.

Town attorney David Grogins confirmed that the suit had been served, but he declined further comment, the newspaper added.

Calls for comment from the school board and Newtown officials were not immediately returned.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO