Gun store ordered to pay $6 million to injured police

MILWAUKEE — Jurors ordered a Wisconsin gun store to pay about $6 million on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by two Milwaukee police officers who were shot and seriously wounded by a gun purchased at the store.

The ruling came in a negligence lawsuit filed by the officers against Badger Guns, a shop in suburban Milwaukee that authorities have linked to hundreds of firearms found at crime scenes. The lawsuit said the shop ignored several warning signs that the gun used to shoot the officers was being sold to a so-called straw buyer who was illegally purchasing the weapon for someone else.

Officer Bryan Norberg and former Officer Graham Kunisch were both shot in the face after they stopped Julius Burton for riding his bike on the sidewalk in the summer of 2009. Investigators said Burton got the weapon, a Taurus .40-caliber handgun, a month before the confrontation, after giving $40 to another man, Jacob Collins, to make the purchase at the store in West Milwaukee.

One bullet shattered eight of Norberg’s teeth, blew through his cheek and lodged into his shoulder. He remains on the force but said his wounds have made his work difficult. Kunisch was shot several times, resulting in him losing an eye and part of the frontal lobe of his brain. He said the wounds forced him to retire.

Jurors sided with the officers, ruling that the store was negligent. Jurors ordered the store to pay Norberg $1.5 million, Kunisch $3.6 million and punitive damages of $730,000.

The officers’ lawyer, Patrick Dunphy, said Tuesday that his clients “feel very relieved,” though he anticipates years of appeals.

Defense attorneys declined to comment after the verdict was read. The owners and operators of the gun shop weren’t in court to hear the verdict.

The gun shop’s attorneys denied wrongdoing. They said that the owner of the store at the time of the gun sale, Adam Allan, couldn’t be held financially responsible for crimes connected to a weapon sold at his shop and that the clerk didn’t intentionally commit a crime. Rather, they said Collins and Burton went out of their way to deceive the salesman.