After suffering injuries during the Brooklyn subway shooting, a woman is suing gun manufacturer Glock. Ilene Steur alleges that the company’s distribution practices allowed the suspect to get the gun used in the attack, The Guardian reports.
Steur filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of New York and has named the Georgia-based company, Glock Inc., as well as its Austrian parent company, Glock Ges.m.b.H, as defendants.
She was among the passengers riding the subway on April 12 when the suspected gunman, Frank James, reportedly placed two smoke grenades inside of the train before opening fire.
“I always see on the news about people — innocent people — getting shot, and my heart goes out to the victims and their families. I never thought I would be one of those victims,” said Steur in an official statement. “There has got to be better control of who gets their hands on these guns.”
The 49-year-old is one of 10 people who were wounded in the attack. According to the suit, due to her “serious and permanent personal injuries,” Steur is no longer able to perform normal activities.
Since the late 1980s, Glock has sold its weapons in the U.S. and initially marketed them to police departments, per the details of the lawsuit. Its lightweight and high-capacity semi-automatic pistol offered an alternative to the six-round revolvers that were previously used by law enforcement agencies.
Today, the lawsuit alleges that the gun manufacturer purposely produced more guns than were needed and thus created a secondary market in which the firearms are able to be resold in various places, including pawn shops.
The Glock pistol used by James in the April attack was purchased from a pawn shop located in Columbus, Ohio in 2011.
“Defendants are aware that by over-saturating the market with guns, the guns will go to the secondary markets that serve purchasers with a criminal intent, such as James,” the suit reads.
Glock has not immediately commented on the lawsuit.