By Hannah Claire Brimelow
Remington Arms sent 18,000 cartoons and 15,000 photos of people go-karting and dirt-biking as official court documents as part of a lawsuit they face from Sandy Hook victims’ families.
The images appear to have no connection in any way to the claims made by the plaintiffs. The families’ lawyers subsequently submitted a complaint to the Connecticut State Superior Court.
“When the seemingly random cartoons, images, videos, duplicates, and other items noted are accounted for, Remington, it would seem, has spent the better part of seven years producing 6,606 potentially useful documents in response to the plaintiffs’ requests,” the complaint said. It also claims that over 46,000 documents submitted by the gunmaker are irrelevant.
From NPR: “Court documents show the plaintiffs requested that Remington produce any documents related to the company’s marketing and advertising of its AR-type rifles, including “a complete history of their presence on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, plaintiffs requested the files be provided in a way that allowed for full access to user comments, video playback and image metadata. In other words, instead of providing a screenshot of a Facebook video post, plaintiffs asked Remington to instead send the video file itself.”
The gunmaker did submit over 2,000 emails are part of discovery.
Remington lead attorney James Vogts said “(Remington) will respond to this motion in the coming weeks, and point out what it believes are incorrect representations, numerous half-truths, and important omissions by (families’) counsel.”
No other explanation has been offered by the company at this time. The submitted images include emojis, a ‘fillet minion,’ and a farmer.
“The families of the Sandy Hook victims sued Remington in 2014, accusing it of mismarketing the AR-15 rifle that Adam Lanza used to murder 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012,” noted the New York Post.
The company disagrees and says that Lanza is exclusively to blame for the shooting. The gun was purchased by his mother and kept in an unlocked closet in her home. “
The Connecticut Post reported that “Remington made national news last summer when it declared bankruptcy for the second time in two years and was sold for $159 million to Fairfield-based Sturm Ruger and six other companies. A federal bankruptcy judge assured the Sandy Hook families that some of the sale proceeds would be dedicated to keeping the gunmaker’s insurance intact.”
The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2019 so it was returned to the state’s high court. After an automatic one year stay of proceedings, the trial is expected to take place in the fall. Jury selection is scheduled in September. Remington Arms has until August 1 to produce any remaining documents.
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