The nation has been gripped by news of the recent shooting that recently occurred in Arizona. Alabama personal injury attorneys are aware that people injured as a result of a rampage may have a personal injury claim and families of a victim may have a wrongful death claim following a tragic shooting.

On February 12, violence erupted at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. A former professor allegedly opened fire during a faculty meeting in the biology department at UAH. Three faculty members were killed in the incident and three others suffered personal injuries.

Now two separate Alabama wrongful death lawsuits have been filed by two of the families of victims who died in February. The lawsuits have been filed against the alleged shooter, her husband and against the Provost of the University.

The lawsuits claim that administrators at the university knew that the alleged shooter suffered from mental instability. He alleged shooter reportedly had threatened, harassed and hounded some of the university administrators before the shooting allegedly occurred.

The families claim that standards at universities nationwide and specifically at the University of Alabama Huntsville place an obligation upon administrators to seek intervention from law enforcement and counseling services to protect faculty and students at a university when there is reason to believe a person has become unstable. The procedures were been widely adopted at schools after recent massacres occurred at other institutions of learning.

The families claim the two lawsuits that the provost was negligent in not following adopted procedures that are meant to protect staff members.

The university released a statement on Friday denying the school acted negligently. The university says the February 12 rampage in the biology department meeting was a random act of violence. The school says that the provost and anyone associated with the institution could not have predicted the February shootings. The university claims that nothing could have been done to stop what the school calls a random act.

Source: The Huntsville Times via al.com, "Families of two killed in UAH shooting file wrongful death suit against provost and Amy Bishop," 14 Jan 2011