A gun shop must pay nearly $6 million after it was found negligent in selling a weapon used to shoot two Milwaukee police officers. That’s what a jury ruled Tuesday, when it found that Badger Guns broke four sales-related laws when it sold a weapon to a man who later sold it to Julius Burton.
Investigators said Burton was too young to buy the gun on his own, and he used it to shoot and severely injure Milwaukee officer Bryan Norberg and former officer Graham Kunisch in 2007.
Jurors heard two weeks of testimony and deliberated for nine hours before deciding that Badger Guns must pay Kunisch $3.6 million dollars and Norberg $1.5 million. The store also has to pay $730,000 in punitive damages.
Badger Guns promises to appeal. The case was only the second of its kind nationally, after Congress passed a 2005 law granting immunity to gun dealers for criminal shootings — unless the dealers broke the law themselves. In the other case, jurors sided with a gun store in Alaska.