We knew it wouldn’t be long before civil suits started rolling in following the shooting massacre at the Century 16 Theater in Aurora, CO, last week and Torrance Brown, Jr. has filed the first one, according to TMZ. Torrance attended the midnight viewing of the “Dark Knight Rises” last Thursday night and though he walked away from the horrific scene uninjured, one of his best friend’s, A.J. Boik, was shot in the chest and died. Now Torrance claims to be suffering from extreme trauma and he wants three specific entities to pay for it. According to TMZ, Torrance has hired attorney Donald Karpel to represent him in a suit against the following defendants:
1. The theater. Karpel claims it was negligent for the theater to have an emergency door in the front that was not alarmed or guarded. It’s widely believed Holmes entered the theater with a ticket, propped the emergency door open from inside, went to his car and returned with guns.
2. Holmes’ doctors. Karpel says it appears Holmes was on several medications — prescribed by one or more doctors – at the time of the shooting and he believes the docs did not properly monitor Holmes.
3. Warner Bros. Karpel says “Dark Knight Rises” was particularly violent and Holmes mimicked some of the action. The attorney says theater goers were helpless because they thought the shooter was part of the movie. Karpel tells TMZ, “Somebody has to be responsible for the rampant violence that is shown today.”
It will be interesting to see whether that last point gets proven considering James Holmes, the suspect who has been taken into custody for carrying out the massacre, planned the shooting spree before even viewing the film and was clearly mentally unstable prior to its debut. Also whenever people seek monetary damages so soon following a tragedy like this the motive always seems questionable and the value of the lives lost tends to lose some significance. Torrance is no doubt extremely grief stricken but not so much so that he doesn’t still have money on the brain. I guess the validity of his claim will be up to a judge to decide though. What do you think? Should Torrance receive compensation from all defendants?
via MadameNoire
