A memorial to victims of the Allen Premium Outlets mass shooting is seen, Monday, May 6, 2024, in Allen, Texas. The memorial stands 11 feet tall and has eight wind chimes, one for each of the victims of the shooting.
Elías Valverde II/Staff Photographer
Texas’ top court will decide whether victims of the 2023 Allen mall mass shooting can sue the center’s owner for negligence.
Family members of victims allege that Simon Property Group failed to provide adequate safety measures at Allen Premium Outlets, where eight people were killed and seven injured in the massacre. Simon Property, however, wants the lawsuit thrown out, arguing that it did not have a legal duty to protect shoppers from a shooting.
A police officer working nearby shot and killed the gunman, who wore a tactical vest embroidered with “RWDS” (Right Wing Death Squad) and had expressed white supremacist and neo-Nazi views before the shooting.
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The lawsuit also names the mall’s security provider, Allied Universal Security Services, and Budget Suites of America, which operated the motel where the gunman was living beforehand.
Byron Henry, an attorney representing the family members and victims, told the Texas Supreme Court last week that Simon knew of the risk of shootings at open-air malls because other properties had experienced them, according to Courthouse News Service.
Early morning hours at Allen Premium Outlets mall on the day of the reopening on Wednesday, May 31, 2023 in Allen.
Shafkat Anowar/Staff Photographer
In the three years preceding the shooting, the families say, the Allen Police Department responded to more than 3,000 calls at the mall. Still, the mall had only one unarmed security guard for the 611,000-square-foot complex. The guard was killed by the shooter.
But Monica Latin, the owners’ attorney, told the court that property owners do not have a legal duty under Texas law to protect against third-party acts on their premises, especially criminal acts, Courthouse News reported.
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Related: Families of victims in 2023 Allen shooting sue mall owner, security company
Justice Debra Lehrmann asked whether mass shootings should be held to the same standard as other crimes, the outlet reported.
“This is a completely unique, different thing that our country, unlike other countries, has to deal with,” she said.
The shooting victims represented in the suit are Kyu Song Cho, 37; Cindy Shinyoung Cho, 35; and James Cho, 3; Elio Cumana-Rivas, 32; and Aishwarya Thatikonda, 26. Preetibala Patel, who was injured in the shooting, and her family also joined the suit.
Also killed in the shooting were Christian LaCour, a 20-year-old security officer from Farmersville who was working at the mall that day, and sisters Sofia and Daniela Mendoza, 8 and 11.
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Names of the victims are shown on screens as the Allen Philharmonic Orchestra plays during a remembrance event at Credit Union of Texas Event Center commemorating the 2023 mass shooting at Allen Premium Outlets on Monday, May 6, 2024, in Allen, Texas.
Smiley N. Pool/Staff Photographer
Simon Property owns numerous shopping centers in North Texas, including University Park Village and Shops at Clearfork in Fort Worth, Firewheel Town Center in Garland and Grand Prairie Premium Outlets.
Latin, the owners’ attorney, asked justices to consider the societal cost of imposing a duty on property owners to prevent mass shootings, including “whether the duty would require conspicuous security at every point of potential contact,” Courthouse News reported.
“But you have to balance that against what the other reality is,” Lehrmann responded, the outlet said. “What would that look like? That you have to go through metal detectors, do the things like we do at airports, etc. compared to telling your children goodbye this morning for school, and I hope to see you when you get back home. And that is a reality of what’s out there. So maybe some of those things are not as unreasonable as you’re saying, in light of what’s on the other side of that scale.”
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A trial court and state appeals court previously denied Simon Property’s request to toss the lawsuit.
Related: Negligence lawsuit tied to Allen mall mass shooting allowed to proceed, trial date set