LAS VEGAS- MGM Resorts, owner of the Las Vegas hotel that was the scene of the worst mass shooting in modern US history, has sued victims of the massacre, triggering mass protest in that state.
However the suit does not seek for money but aims to force the 1000 people who are suing MGM over the October shooting that killed 58 people at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, to drop their suits on grounds that MGM Resorts is not liable.
The group of people who sued the hotel group o Friday in Nevada and in the federal courts in Los Angeles.
Stephen Paddock the man who executed the mass shooting fired countless bullets over a country music festival from the 32nd floor of the hotel with powerful rifles.
The savagery of the attack left 851 other people injured. Paddock, 64, killed himself in the room as police moved in.
According to the papers filed on Friday around 2500, some of them survivors of the gruesome attack and relatives who lost love ones during the attack at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, are suing MGM or have threatened to sue, MGM said in its filing, according to a AFP report.
MGM wants the suit dropped accusing them of negligence.
MGM argued that the case must be handled under a post-September 11 law called the Safety, the act provides incentives for development and deployment of anti-terrorism technologies.
The hotel group added that the security firm contracted for the concert, CSC, was approved by the Department of Homeland Security and is thus released from liability under the law.
MGM said that concert organizer entrusted security to CSC meaning the hotel group cannot be held liable for the massacre.
Route 911 a victims support group has called the law suit by MGM a “revictimizing” the victims.
Attorney Robert Eglet, representing one of the victims, said that “in my 30 years of practice, this is the most reprehensible behavior I have ever seen a defendant engage in.”
“This is just OUTRAGEOUS & WRONG,” tweeted JoAnn Smith, an employee of a security firm in Las Vegas and many others who are angered by MGM actions.
Photo Credit- www.yahoo.com
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