Gunmaker bombarded lawyers of Sandy Hook massacre families with random cartoons and pictures

Remington Arms sent lawyers for families of Sandy Hook victims 18,000 ‘random cartoon’ images, GIFs and videos

A handout crime scene evidence photo provided by the Connecticut State Police shows the exterior of the Sandy Hook Elementary School after the 2012 shooting (Getty Images)

Lawyers representing nine families of the 2012 Sandy Hook tragedy said bankrupt gunmaker Remington Arms sent over thousands of “random cartoon images”, videos and GIFs to them as part of a lawsuit against it.

The lawyers said in a motion filed at the Connecticut Superior Court last week that there were more than 15,000 images of people go-karting, riding dirt bikes, 18,000 random cartoons and over 1,500 video files of the ice bucket challenge and gender reveal parties.

“Having repeatedly represented to the (families) and this court that it was devoting extensive resources to making what it described as ‘substantial’ document productions… Remington has instead made the plaintiffs wait years to receive cartoon images, gender reveal videos, and duplicate copies of catalogues,” said the complaint filed by the families’ lawyers.

Families of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting sued Remington in 2014, aiming to hold it accountable for its marketing of the gun used to kill 20 children and six teachers and school staff during the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

Some of the other files that the lawyers said they received include advertisements for Remington coffee mugs and pictures of a farmer and a bowl of ice-cream.

While Remington did not specifically reply to the cartoons, its lead attorney James Vogts told the Connecticut Post that the the gunmaker “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.”

A Connecticut judge had earlier said that the lawsuit by the families against Remington would go to trial in September 2021.

The families’ attorneys have asked the court to order Remington to produce all documents, including all emails, that have been requested.

The lawyers do acknowledge that Remington has turned over some relevant documents.

“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,” they said in the motion.

But even these 6,606 documents are not without problems, according to them.

Remington last year filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for the second time in two years. The Sandy Hook families released a statement at the time, saying Remington must not be permitted to use its bankruptcy filing to dodge responsibility.