ORLANDO, Fla. – The families of the two people killed in a mass shooting in downtown Orlando last Halloween are planning to file a lawsuit over the incident.
Timothy Schmidt Jr., 19, and Tyrek Hill, 25, were killed during a Halloween street party in downtown Orlando, just after 1 a.m. on Nov. 1, 2024.
Police say Jaylen Edgar, 17, opened fire into a crowd of thousands of people. Edgar is still in Orange County Jail on murder charges.
[WATCH video below about shooting suspect Jaylen Edgar]
In addition to Schmidt and Hill, seven other people were shot and injured, and an eighth person was trampled as people fled the area.
The lawsuit, filed by the Haggard Law Firm on behalf of Schmidt’s and Hill’s families, accuses the city, the Orlando Police Department, and several businesses and event organizers of “negligence in crowd control, security planning, and overall public safety measures during one of Orlando’s largest annual events,” according to a news release.
In a news conference held Tuesday, Timothy Schmidt Sr. said a stain from his son’s blood was still in front of the building on Orange Avenue where he was shot.
“I’ll never see him graduate college, secure a career, get married, have kids, and I’ll never have grandkids to spoil,” Schmidt said.
Teresa Clinton, Tyrek Hill’s mother, said she asked her son if going out was a good idea. But it was Halloween, and he wanted to be with his friends.
“On Friday, November the 21st, 2024, I was waiting on a phone call and I got one,” said Clinton. “But it was not from my gentle giant. I would never hear his voice again. Oh, how I would love to hear that voice. To lose your child like this, it’s the worst thing ever. We know that we all have to leave here, but what a way to call because of someone else’s negligence.”
Attorney Michael Haggard says the families want answers as to how the event was planned and who was in charge of security.
“How did this private partnership work? What was the planning going into security for this event? We all know that they had noticed early on that evening of this assailant when he was confronted by police," Haggard said. “What happened after that? And how can this be prevented?”
News 6 asked city officials to respond to the news conference. A spokesperson said, “In accordance with our standard practice, we cannot comment on litigation.”
[WATCH previous coverage of the shooting]
After the shooting, Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said about 100 officers were working the detail for the event, where an estimated 75,000 people attended.
“They responded right when they heard the shooting. You know, everybody else is running, they’re not, they’re sitting in position looking for a shooter. They found the shooter. They took him down,” Smith said last November.
Smith also said that a state law allowing concealed carry without a permit, which became law in 2024, meant police could no longer have weapons checks or a weapons ban at entry points.
“When the state law changed, you saw that we changed how we did downtown. We could no longer do the dogs (that) we had downtown,” Smith said. “Law enforcement always changes. We are working with the city, working with the clubs downtown to figure out if there’s something else we can go to, to sort of keep it secure down there. As you can see with that many people down there, we have no idea what people have, you know, on their person, if they have grudges against somebody, you know, most people are down there to have a great time and of course you always get those few people who come down there who have different things on their mind.”
Still, it would have been illegal for someone of Edgar’s age at the time to have a firearm in public, with few exceptions.
In the wake of the shooting, the city of Orlando made changes to Orange Avenue that were meant to bring an end to the “street party atmosphere.” It included reopening the street and the side streets to vehicular traffic during late-night hours, using barricades to keep people closer to the sidewalks.
[WATCH video below to learn more about Downtown Orlando’s latest safety changes]
It was the latest change in a years-long battle over public safety in Downtown Orlando.
The city has been trying to crack down on problems ever since a shooting in July 2022 injured seven people. City officials received significant pushback from nightclub and bar owners who said the city’s policies were detrimental to their businesses. They included requiring the businesses to pay for security as part of new permit rules for serving alcohol after midnight.
Haggard law firm, which is representing the families, has also handled lawsuits by families of the victims in other mass shootings around the country, including the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas in 2018, and the Dollar General shooting in Jacksonville in 2023.