Parkland shooting victim's parents file lawsuit
Parkland shooting victim Anthony Borges holds the hand of Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel while recovering from five gunshot wounds. (Photo: Broward County Sheriff’s Office via AP)
The parents of a teen shot five times during the school shooting in Parkland, Florida filed a lawsuit in state court this week.
Royer Borges and Emely Delfin demand a jury trial and damages in excess of $15,000 on behalf of their son, 15-year-old Anthony Borges, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds while shielding other students during the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February.
The lawsuit charges 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz, the confessed gunman, with assault and battery. Three mental health clinics, the couple who sheltered Cruz after his mother’s death in November, and the mother’s estate all face negligence charges, according to the complaint filed in Broward County Circuit Court.
Borges’s parents said their son spent more than a month in the hospital recovering from three wounds in his legs and two in his torso. He underwent multiple surgeries, endured a medically-induced coma and experienced “extreme physical pain and suffering,” the complaint says. “He is now, and for the foreseeable future, confined to a wheelchair and requires constant care, until he is able to move on his own.”
Anthony Borges and 16 others were wounded when Cruz opened fire shortly before 2:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, killing 17 with an AR-15 rifle he bought days after his 18th birthday in September 2016. The complaint states mental health practitioners, the Broward County Sheriffs Office and even the FBI knew of Cruz’s mental instability and growing collection of firearms, but did nothing.
“As the FBI Director has made clear, the FBI could have and should have done more to investigate the information it was provided prior to the shooting,” said David Bowdich, deputy director of the FBI, during a Senate hearing on Capitol Hill last month. “While we will never know if any such investigative activity would have prevented this tragedy, we clearly should have done more.”
A GoFundMe page for Anthony set up a day after the shooting has collected more than $884,000 in donations.
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