A jury in Christiansburg, Virginia, decided Wednesday in favor of two families of victims in the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting who had accused the school of negligence.
The seven-member jury awarded $4 million to each of the families, a spokesman for the state attorney general's office said. In suing the state, the families' lawyers had argued that the school should have notified the student body sooner after learning that two other students had been found dead in a West Ambler Johnston dormitory room on the morning of April 16, 2007.
Seung-Hui Cho then went on to kill 30 other people, including the two victims whose families had sued - Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde - before killing himself. Peterson died while in her French class; Pryde was pursuing a master's degree in biological systems engineering.
"Vindication has finally come," said Suzanne Grimes, whose son Kevin Sterne was among the wounded at Virginia Tech. "This is about them being accountable," she told CNN in a telephone interview from Florida. "This will ensure the safety of students in the future."
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Great. Then the citizens can pay for it.
well how many lives couldve been saved had they acted quicker? Got a price for that?
Is that $4 million for 30 families or the 2 that sued?
The $4million is the jury verdict but not what the families will get- Virginia has a cap at $100,000 per family. So they won't get any more than any of the other families. They clearly wanted to know the truth of what happened that day. The families probably spent twice as much as that putting on a case like this. And the attorney probably won't get a dime- he does a lot of pro bono work and is known in Virginia for taking cases no one else will touch because it's the right thing to do.
....Literally