LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Teenager Anna Lynn Jones was killed last year after she was shot dead by a drunk professor while she was sitting in her parked car.
Now, her mother Jessica Maxwell has filed a lawsuit against the gunman as per the latest reports. The 18-year-old freshman-to-be at the University of West Georgia died after Richard Edward Sigman, 48, a then-professor at the same university, fired randomly at parked cars, killing her instantly.
As per the Carrollton Police Department, on July 30, 2022 Sigman argued with a man at Leopoldo’s Pizza Napoletana and threatened to shoot him. After he was reported to security at the establishment, Sigman was asked to leave.
“Security approached Sigman, saw he had a weapon, and told him to leave,” cops said. “Sigman then left walking toward the parking deck.”
When was Anna Jones shot dead?
The shooting that killed Anna was recorded after midnight on July 30, 2022, in the parking deck near Adamson Square, cops said.
“The investigation then indicates Sigman walked into the parking deck and began shooting into a parked vehicle striking the victim,” as per police. “Friends immediately drove her to the hospital where she was pronounced deceased.”
Why is Anna Jones' mother suing Leopoldo’s Pizza Napoletana?
Jessica also filed a suit against Leopoldo’s Pizza Napoletana and its owner Federico Leopoldo Gimenez, alleging that the bar/restaurant where Sigman was “drinking, behaving aggressively, and threaten[ing] to shoot another patron before killing Anna” was negligent in its response before the “senseless and easily preventable killing.”
“In undertaking to address and mitigate the armed, belligerent, aggressive, and intoxicated Sigman, the Bar Defendants had the duty to exercise reasonable care in that undertaking, and are liable for injuries to Anna Jones resulting from their negligent failure to exercise reasonable care in performing the undertaking,” the lawsuit says. It calls the alleged negligence a “direct and proximate cause” of Jones’ death, as per Law&Crime.
The lawsuit further stated, "When Leopoldo’s Pizza security approached a clearly intoxicated Sigman, they were aware that he had a weapon. Instead of calling the police as the situation warranted, retaining Sigman inside the bar, disarming him, or otherwise taking reasonable measures to control him or to mitigate or de-escalate the situation, security forced Sigman to leave the bar while armed, dangerous, agitated and intoxicated."
"At no time prior to getting Sigman to leave, during the process of Sigman leaving, or after Sigman left, did any employee or agent of Leopoldo’s Pizza contact law enforcement to advise them that Sigman was intoxicated, armed, had threatened to shoot another bar patron, and was heading out of the bar," it added.
