I am a lawyer
@subextraordinaire @Jesse13927 @DukeTrout @KathyPartdeux @VeronicaConnor and @Brainspore are all correct. A person can sue the government in the US- federal, state, municipal.
These entities do have some immunity. It varies by state. California is not the same as Texas and looking at California laws will tell you nothing about how such a suit might go down in Texas.
generally speaking a government has immunity when it is doing it’s job. But when there is negligence or a criminal act, that immunity is not absolute.
Nothing stops anyone from suing. A person can almost always file a suit, immunity cannot prevent that. The suit just might not get very far.
Will the officers who failed to do their job and let those children and teachers die get sued? My opinion is, yes. Will the plaintiffs prevail? Possible. The facts of their actions here are quite different from Castle Rock v. Gonzales. I’m sure you can find many opinion pieces on why they are different. But while I am a lawyer, I don’t specialize in that area.
Tl;dr governmental immunity is a very complicated area of law. There are literally entire law firms that specialize in it. But no governmental body in the US is totally immune from legal liability. Nothing prevents a person from filing a lawsuit. People do this all the time and do prevail quite a bit
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