NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York woman who was injured during the April 12 mass shooting aboard a New York City subway car has sued Glock Inc, arguing the gun manufacturer should have known its weapons could be purchased by people with criminal intent.
Brooklyn resident Ilene Steur, 49, is seeking to have the Georgia-based company and its Austrian parent, Glock Ges.m.b.H, compensate her for physical injuries and emotional pain she suffered after she was shot on the northbound N train while on her way to work, according to the complaint.
Her lawsuit comes after New York state in 2021 passed a law allowing people affected by gun violence to sue gunmakers for creating a “nuisance” that endangers public safety and health. Steur asked a judge to order Glock to “eradicate the effects” of its marketing practices.
New York police said Frank James used a Glock pistol he bought in Ohio to open fire after setting off two smoke bombs during the rush hour attack, injuring two dozen people, including ten who were shot. James, 62, pleaded not guilty.
“The defendants’ marketing and distribution practices made it far more likely that criminals, including Frank James, would obtain their weapons,” Steur’s lawyers wrote in a complaint filed on Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.
Last week, a federal judge in Albany threw out a lawsuit by a group of gun manufacturers and others challenging the nuisance law’s constitutionality.
Glock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The suit comes amid a renewed push to reform U.S. gun laws following a string of mass shootings, including the subway attack, a May 14 racist shooting in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10 people, and an elementary school shooting last week in Uvalde, Texas, in which 19 children and two teachers were killed.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Aurora Ellis)
