AUGUSTA, Maine — Families of victims and survivors of the Lewiston mass shooting have now hired four law firms to seek “accountability” following Maine’s deadliest-ever rampage, including two legal groups that helped reach large settlements after the Sutherland Springs and Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shootings.
The families have hired Maine firms Berman & Simmons and Gideon Asen, along with National Trial Law and Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder PC, according to a Thursday news release that did not name the clients or specify how many are currently represented. The families have not yet filed lawsuits.
The Oct. 25 mass shooting at a Lewiston bowling alley and bar left 18 people dead and 13 injured. After a 48-hour manhunt, the gunman, a 40-year-old Army reservist from Bowdoin, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in nearby Lisbon.
“The collaboration is designed to ensure a comprehensive approach to obtaining accountability, investigating potential claims and preventing such incidents from occurring in the future,” Thursday’s news release said. “Attorneys are working with numerous clients from both shooting locations, representing those who lost loved ones, those who were injured and witnesses to the tragic events.”
National Trial Law, based in Austin, Texas, represented the survivors of the 2017 shooting at a Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, that left 26 dead and 22 injured and reached an initial settlement of roughly $230 million with the U.S. Air Force over claims it did not report the gunman’s history of violence to a federal background check system.
The Connecticut-based Koskoff firm represented families of five children and four adults killed in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School that had 26 fatalities. The families sued Remington, which made and marketed the AR-15-style rifle used in the massacre, and reached a $73 million settlement.
Berman & Simmons had already sent notices to preserve documents earlier this month to 20 state and federal agencies, including the Sagadahoc County Sheriff’s Office, the Army Reserve and the in-patient psychiatric center in New York where the gunman stayed this summer. Thursday’s news release said more than dozen entities across three states have now received notices and open records requests.
The goal, according to the law firms, is to “acquire additional information on how this tragedy occurred.”
BDN writer Marie Weidmayercontributed to this story.
