{"id":25765,"date":"2025-10-29T22:17:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25765\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T22:17:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:17:10","slug":"families-of-orlando-halloween-mass-shooting-victims-file-suit-to-get-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/25765\/","title":{"rendered":"Families of Orlando Halloween mass shooting victims file suit \u2018to get answers\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Nearly one year after a mass shooting during Halloween festivities in downtown Orlando<\/a>, the families of the two victims who died are pursuing legal action against the city and the operator of Wall Street Plaza.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lawsuit was filed to get answers because we weren\u2019t getting them,\u201d said Timothy Schmidt Sr., whose son was shot and killed in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, as tens of thousands of people participated in Halloween festivities in downtown Orlando.<\/p>\n

Jaylen Edgar, 17 at the time of the shooting<\/a>, is charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of Timothy Schmidt Jr. and Tyrek Hill, as well as six counts of attempted murder.<\/p>\n

[WATCH: 17-year-old arrested in downtown Orlando mass shooting]<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s different things that obviously could\u2019ve stopped this whole thing from happening,\u201d said Douglas McCarron, a crime victim attorney with the Haggard Law Firm.<\/p>\n

McCarron is representing the families of Schmidt and Hill in two identical lawsuits filed against the city of Orlando and Downtown Power, LLC.<\/p>\n

Downtown Power is the operator of Wall Street Plaza. A permit obtained by News 6 showed that the company had a Special Events Permit for Wall Street Plaza from Sept. 21, 2024, to Nov. 11, 2024. One of the events listed on the permit reads, \u201cHalloween Party – 10-31.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWere they just responsible for this little, small section of Wall Street or did it expand outside?\u201d McCarron said in an interview with News 6 Wednesday, hours after he filed the lawsuits. \u201cI can\u2019t give a definitive answer to that right now. We believe that it was outside, but I don\u2019t have anything in writing that says that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrest affidavit for Edgar does not mention Wall Street Plaza at any point.<\/p>\n

In response to a request for comment, Bosko Lazic, the owner of Downtown Power, distanced himself from the lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why we are part of the lawsuit because the incident didn\u2019t happen on our property and it didn\u2019t happen inside our permited (sic) area,\u201d Lazic wrote.<\/p>\n

The lawsuits allege a slew of perceived failures related to areas like security, training, and lighting.<\/p>\n

[WATCH: Former Orlando police chief discusses security, response after downtown mass shooting]<\/p>\n

As for the city of Orlando, the lawsuits make several claims, including the allegation that the city, \u201cthrough its OPD officers and agents, negligently failed to implement its policies and procedures and failed to maintain the area where the Downtown Orlando Halloween festivities\/block party took place in a condition reasonably safe for use by its invitees.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to a request for comment, a city spokesperson said the city does not comment on specifics of pending litigation. <\/p>\n

The lawsuits also claim that before the mass shooting, police officers \u201cfailed to search [Edgar] for any concealed weapons\/firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email directed to OPD \u2014 and copied to the aforementioned city spokesperson \u2014 News 6 asked specifically about the allegation that officers did not search the defendant. <\/p>\n

The city spokesperson responded with the same statement: \u201cIt is city practice that we do not comment on specifics of pending litigation.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a press conference in the aftermath of last year\u2019s mass shooting, Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said there were about 100 officers working in the area. He also cited the state\u2019s constitutional carry law in citing the department\u2019s security posture during that weekend.<\/p>\n

The lawsuits coincide with preparations for this coming weekend\u2019s Halloween festivities. <\/p>\n

A website for Wall Street Plaza is selling tickets for the 2025 Halloween Block Party, slated to be held Friday night into early Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

News 6 asked OPD about steps the department is taking to prepare for this year\u2019s festivities. In response, we received an email with the following statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe safety and security of everyone remains the Orlando Police Department\u2019s top priority. While we don\u2019t discuss specific security measures, we always plan and staff large-scale events appropriately to provide proper public safety and assess the needs of the event to make any necessary security modifications.<\/p>\n

The Orlando Police Department wants to remind our community to always call 9-1-1 or flag down an officer working the event if they see anything suspicious. Whether security measures are visible or not, officers are always working on the streets and behind the scenes to ensure the safety of our city.”<\/p>\n

[WATCH: Downtown Orlando safety changes now taking effect after fatal shooting]<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the shooting, the city rolled out changes to Orange Avenue downtown<\/a>, opening it and its side streets to regular vehicle traffic during late-night hours.<\/p>\n

The move ended the \u201cstreet-party atmosphere\u201d downtown, which city officials said led to consistent public safety issues.<\/p>\n

The City of Orlando website<\/a> lists no road closures for Orange Avenue on Halloween night.<\/p>\n

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Copyright 2025 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Nearly one year after a mass shooting during Halloween festivities in downtown Orlando, the families…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[265,1335,139,19478,141,140,215],"class_list":["post-25765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-halloween-mass-shooting","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}