A jury has ordered a gun shop to pay nearly $6 million in a lawsuit filed by two Milwaukee, Wis., police officers who were seriously wounded when shot by a gun purchased at the store.
Jurors ruled that Badger Guns was negligent.
The gun that was used to shoot Officers Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch was purchased by a straw buyer, someone who buys a gun for another person who can’t legally purchase one.
Officer Bryan Norberg and now-retired Officer Graham Kunisch were shot by a man they stopped in 2009. Jurors awarded Norberg $1.5 million and Kunisch $3.6 million, and ordered the store to pay $730,000 in punitive damages.
The case has drawn attention because it could set gun law precedent if jurors find the gun shop owners can be held financially responsible for a crime committed with a weapon purchased at their store.
Attorneys defending the owner and operators of Badger Guns and its predecessor, Badger Outdoors, said in closing arguments that their clients didn’t act negligently when they sold the weapon. James Vogts and Wendy Gunderson said their clients and the clerk who sold the gun were deceived by the straw buyer.
The officers’ lawyer, Patrick Dunphy, told jurors there were several tipoffs that should have been sufficient to cancel the sale, including improperly marked forms and the behavior of the buyer, Jacob Collins, and the eventual recipient, Julius Burton, who was too young to buy the gun. Burton was with Collins when the purchase was made. Dunphy also said the shop failed to verify Collins’ identification at the time of the transfer.
Authorities have said more than 500 firearms recovered from crime scenes had been traced back to Badger Guns and Badger Outdoors, making it the “No. 1 crime gun dealer in America,” according to a 2005 charging document from an unrelated case. A former federal agent has also said the shop had failed take necessary precautions to prevent straw purchases.
Norberg and Kunisch were shot after they stopped Burton for riding his bike on the sidewalk in the summer of 2009. A bullet shattered eight of Norberg’s teeth, blew through his cheek and lodged into his shoulder. He has remained on the force but says his wounds have made his work difficult. Kunisch was struck several times, losing an eye and part of the frontal lobe of his brain. He says the wounds forced him to retire.
Burton pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree attempted intentional homicide and is serving an 80-year sentence; Collins got a two-year sentence after pleading guilty to making a straw purchase for an underage buyer.
Presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton recently said she supported repealing a George W. Bush-era gun law that lawyers said protected Badger Guns.
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