Against Utah police, Gabby Petito’s parents file $50M wrongful death suit

Before she was reported missing about a possible domestic dispute weeks later against the police department in Moab, Utah, where the slain travel blogger and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie were questioned, the parents of Gabby Petito had filed a wrongful death lawsuit.   

Before being filed on Thursday the lawsuit, which was initially announced in August in a notice of claim, is seeking at least $50 million in damages.

During a press conference on Thursday Petito’s mother, Nichole Schmidt, said “We feel the need to bring justice because she could have been protected that day”.  

“There are laws put in place to protect victims; those laws were not followed. And we don’t want this to happen to anybody else”. 

James McConkie, one of the attorneys representing the family, said “Gabby would still be alive today”, during the briefing on domestic violence the suit alleges that if the Moab police had followed a Utah law.

“by demanding accountability and working for change in the system in the future the purpose of this lawsuit is to honor Gabby’s legacy to protect victims of domestic abuse and violence and to prevent such tragedies”, McConkie said.

According to an independent report on the incident Moab police questioned Petito and Laundrie during their cross-country road trip after a 911 caller reported seeing a “gentleman slapping the girl on Aug. 12, 2021”. 

According to the report, Petito told police “I definitely hit him first,” and that he grabbed her face, scratching her.

The couple’s argument had been building for days and that she suffered from severe anxiety and other medical conditions, according to the report Petito told police. Rather than a domestic assault police labeled the incident as a “mental/emotional break”.

Moab Police Department Chief Bret Edge said last year “Insufficient evidence existed to justify criminal charges”. 

Before Petito last spoke with her family, who reported her missing on Sept. 11, 2021 about two weeks later the incident took place. 

With a coroner ruling that she had died of “blunt-force injuries to the head and neck, with manual strangulation, about a week later her body was found in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest”.  

Wrote in a notebook that he killed Petito, according to the FBI Laundrie, who was later found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Florida’s Myakkahatchee Creek Environmental Park. 

To avoid enforcing Utah’s domestic violence law to notice “obvious signs” indicating Petito was the victim of domestic abuse and intentionally sought out loopholes, the lawsuit alleges that the Moab officers failed, which removes discretion from officers investigating domestic violence incidents.

“Against future harm the law imposes protections including an automatic protective order to ensure that the abuser and the victim remain separated”, the complaint states.  

“To justify their decision not to enforce Utah law but here to provide answers that the officers used, the officers based on their tragic failure to identify Brian as the abuser coached by Gabby”. 

It also claims the Moab Police Department failed, among other allegations to properly train its officers in evaluating domestic violence situations. 

“We feel profound sympathy for the Petito and Schmidt families and the painful loss they have endured and the death of Gabrielle Petito in Wyoming is a terrible tragedy. 

It is clear that Moab City Police Department officers are not responsible for Gabrielle Petito’s eventual murder, in the statement the city said that at the same time”.  

“Acted with kindness, respect, and empathy” toward Petito, the city said of its officers.

“Based on this single interaction the attorneys for the Petito family seem to suggest that somehow our officers could see into the future”, the city said. 

“The City of Moab will ardently defend against this lawsuit and in truth, on Aug. 12, no one could have predicted the tragedy that would occur weeks later and hundreds of miles away”.  

Into its police department’s handling of the incident involving Petito and Laundrie, the city of Moab previously conducted an independent investigation. 

To Petito, including not issuing a domestic violence citation first responding to the incident after she claimed she hit her boyfriend, in January, the independent report found that police made “several unintentional mistakes”, and who had reported seeing a man slapping a girl not taking a statement from a 911 caller.

For incident reports including providing additional training in domestic violence investigation and strengthening the review process, the city of Moab said it planned to implement recommendations, in response to the report’s findings. Involving the death of Petito, this is the latest lawsuit.

Petito’s parents alleged that Laundrie’s parents knew he killed her and were trying to help him flee, in a civil lawsuit filed in Florida in March against Laundrie’s parents. 

To begin in August 2023 a jury trial in the case is scheduled. The allegations unsuccessfully sought and the Laundries attorneys refused to dismiss the lawsuit.

Source:- https://usnewscap.com/against-utah-police-gabby-petitos-parents-file-50m-wrongful-death-suit/