The shooting at Sandy Hook School on December 14, 2012, in which a gunman shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults, has spawned some lawsuits, which continued moving through the court system during 2019.

In December, a state Superior Court judge said that a lawsuit filed by families of some of the victims against Remington Arms will go to trial in September of 2021.

A survivor and relatives of nine victims of the 2012 incident filed the wrongful death lawsuit against Remington in 2015, saying the company should have never sold such a dangerous weapon to the public and alleging it targeted younger, at-risk males in marketing and product placement in violent video games. Because the gunman killed himself in the incident, there was no criminal prosecution in the case.

Remington, based in Madison, N.C., made the semiautomatic Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle used to kill the victims.

In March, the Connecticut Supreme Court had ruled 4-3 that Remington could be sued under state law over how it marketed the rifle. That decision overturned a ruling by a Connecticut Superior Court judge who had dismissed the lawsuit based on a federal law that shields gun-makers from liability, in most cases, when their products are used in crimes.

But Remington appealed the Connecticut Supreme Court ruling to the US Supreme Court, which then declined to hear the case.

In other litigation, in October, the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by the parents of two Sandy Hook School shooting victims against the Town of Newtown and its school district. The justices did not give a reason in their court order.

The wrongful death lawsuit was brought by the parents of Jesse Lewis and Noah Pozner, two of the 20 children killed in the 2012 shooting. The lawsuit alleged school officials failed to follow a mandated security protocol and order a lockdown that may have saved lives.

In July, the Connecticut Appellate Court had ruled that the town is protected by government immunity. The plaintiffs had brought their appeal to that court after their lawsuit was dismissed by a judge in Connecticut Superior Court.

Garner Warden

In April, Amonda Hannah became the warden of the state’s 260,000-square-foot Garner Correctional Institution, a majority of whose prisoners are mental health inmates. Ms Hannah replaced Anthony Corcella, who became the warden at Corrigan-Radgowski Correctional Center in Uncasville.

Garner is the state prison that specializes in housing and treating inmates with chronic mental health problems. It typically houses approximately 600 male inmates.

In August 1994, in her first post with the state Department of Correction (DOC), Ms Hannah worked as a correctional counselor at Garner at 50 Nunnawauk Road. She worked in that position until 2001, when she became a correctional counselor at the much larger Cheshire Correctional Institution.

Warden Hannah is the ninth person to head Garner and the second woman to serve as warden there. She had been the warden at the Bridgeport Correctional Center before coming to Garner last spring. Her current Garner wardenship marks the third time she has worked there, having served as a deputy warden at Garner for several years starting in 2011.

Garner opened in late 1992 on a 118-acre site that had been a section of the grounds at the state’s Fairfield Hills psychiatric hospital.