Conservative Reporter LIED? Say it isn't so!

Conservative Reporter Misrepresents Court Decision Forcing Parents Of Slain Aurora Theater Shooting Victim To Compensate Ammo Companies

 TIMOTHY JOHNSON

Washington Free Beacon staff writer Stephen Gutowski falsely reported that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence must pay more than $200,000 to ammunition dealers that supplied a gunman who attacked moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado in 2012. The misleading article was published after a court dismissed a lawsuit against the companies.

In fact, the plaintiffs in the case - parents of one of the victims - were ordered to pay the ammunition companies' legal fees because of a special carve-out in Colorado law for the gun industry.

On July 20, 2012, a man wearing body armor and carrying an arsenal of firearms and tear gas fatally shot 12 people and wounded 58 others during a midnight screening at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater. The Brady Center subsequently filed a lawsuit against companies that had supplied the gunman, on behalf of Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter, Jessica Ghawi, was killed in the shooting.

The lawsuit alleged that Lucky Gunner and several other companies had negligently supplied the gunman with thousands of rounds of ammunition, body armor, a high-capacity drum magazine that could hold 100 rounds of ammunition, and canisters of tear gas.

In April, a federal court dismissed the lawsuit and Lucky Gunner and other defendants moved to collect attorney's fees from the plaintiffs. On June 17, a judge granted that request, ordering the Phillipses to pay $203,000. The decision is currently under appeal.

On June 29, Beacon staff writer Gutowski reported on this development, but botched his analysis to claim that the Brady Center, rather than the Phillipses, was ordered to compensate companies that supplied the Aurora gunman.

In an article headlined, "Federal Judge Orders Brady Center to Pay Ammo Dealer's Legal Fees After Dismissing Lawsuit," Gutowski wrote, "A federal judge has ordered that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence pay the legal fees of an online ammunition dealer it sued for the Aurora movie theater shooting." The actual order, which is cited in the article, contradicts this claim by describing at length how the plaintiffs, who are listed at the top of the order as Sandy and Lonnie Phillips, must pay fees to companies that enabled their daughter's killer.

Gutowski's erroneous report was republished and cited throughout conservative media, including byFoxNews.com, The Washington Times, BizPacReview, Ammoland.com, Hot Air, and conservative media watchdog Accuracy In Media.

Meanwhile, the National Rifle Association correctly wrote in The Daily Caller that the Phillipses were ordered to pay the fees in a post that called the decision a "victory... years in the making," and attacked the Brady Center for sponsoring the lawsuit.

During a May 21 MSNBC segment on the lawsuit, host Rachel Maddow noted that Colorado has laws "written explicitly to protect gun and ammunition manufacturers" that allow gun industry companies to recover attorney's fees from plaintiffs, adding, "Sandy Phillips and her husband are, as far as anybody can tell, they are the first people to ever be punished under that specific Colorado statute - they are going to be the first family ever ordered to pay the legal fees under that Colorado statute to the gun industry because they had a daughter who died in one of the worst mass shootings in the history of this country, in the state of Colorado, and they decided to say something about it."

Disclosure: In 2010, I interned with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence Legal Action Project, prior to the filing of the lawsuit discussed in this post.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/06/30/conservative-reporter-misrepresents-court-decis/204203