Raising awareness
Surviving family members file suit against manufacturer, dealer near first anniversary of Midland-Odessa shootings
Surviving family members have filed a lawsuit seeking more than $1 million in damages against a West Texas man and an arms maker in connection with the deadly shooting rampage that left seven dead and 25 wounded in Midland-Odessa last summer.
According to the San Angelo Standard-Times, the suit against Kentucky-based Anderson Manufacturing and Lubbock’s Marcus Anthony Braziel accuses the federally licensed firearms dealer of violating federal statutes and regulations by selling to an unlicensed weapons dealer.
“Anderson Manufacturing knew or reasonably should have known that Braziel was engaged in unlawful gun selling,” states the petition filed in Ector County by Joanna Leyva, Nathan Hernandez, Rodolfo Trejo, Gary Griffith, Sharron Griffith and Carla Griffith Byrne.
The Aug. 31, 2019, attack began when state troopers tried to pull over the gunman on Interstate 20 for failing to signal a left turn. According to Odessa police, Seth Aaron Ator had been fired from his job that day.
The 36-year-old fired several shots at a Texas Department of Public Safety vehicle, striking one trooper. He then continued shooting at random while driving between Midland and Odessa.
At one point, Ator hijacked a mail van, killing the postal worker inside. Police later rammed the van with an SUV outside an Odessa movie theater, where Ator fired at police, wounding two officers before being fatally shot.
By the end of the rampage, seven people were dead: Leilah Hernandez, 15; Mary Granados, 29; Joseph Griffith, 40; Rodolfo “Rudy” Arco, 57; Kameron Brown, 30; Edwin Peregrino, 25; and Raul Garcia, 35.
The lawsuit claims the AR-15 rifle used by Ator was illegally purchased through Braziel and made by Anderson Arms, the Standard-Times said. According to the petition, family members hope that “by imposing accountability on the defendants for their negligence and violations of the law, that they might prevent future gun violence and future gun deaths in Texas, and beyond.”
The suit says Ator should have been prohibited from buying or possessing a weapon due to a disqualifying mental health issue. It also claims Braziel did not possess a federal license to sell firearms, but sold a firearm to a person ineligible to have one.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said Ator was denied a gun after a background check was run through the National Instant Criminal Background Check system. Authorities have not said when or why the decision to deny Ator’s request was made.
Attorney John Sloan, who is representing surviving family members in the lawsuit, said the sale was “clearly negligent,” the Standard-Times said.
The family members list medical expenses, mental anguish, physical pain and suffering, disfigurement, death, as well as funeral and burial expenses as a result of the alleged negligence.
The newspaper reported that in a Friday press conference, Carla Byrne said she couldn’t just sit by and “be sad.”
“(The mass shooter) killed seven people, including my little brother and this beautiful 15-yearold girl,” she said. “And Marcus Braziel put the gun in his hand.”
The lawsuit was filed three days before the first anniversary of the shooting.
“Our clients want to hold accountable those who manufactured, profited from, and supplied the AR-style weapon used in the shooting,” Sloan stated in a press released issued last week Thursday.
Sloan said he hopes the suit brings attention to the expansions of universal background checks since Ator had reportedly failed a background check when he attempted to purchase a firearm in 2014. Ator previously had been temporarily committed to an institution and adjudicated “a mental defective.”
Sloan said Anderson Manufacturing and Braziel each will be served by certified mail, after which they have roughly 20 days to answer the lawsuit.
“Hopefully, we will be able to take Braziel’s deposition,” Sloan said. “That’s one of the goals.”