Editor’s Note: September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. If you or someone you know is in crisis, please call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org/chat for free, confidential support.
Earlier this week, Everytown Law, Arnold & Porter, and Fuller Wallner announced that they had filed a lawsuit in Minnesota state court on behalf of Sarah Van Bogart against Scheels, a large sporting goods retailer with locations across the United States. The lawsuit alleges that Scheels’ negligence led to the death of Bogart’s 19-year-old son, Jordan Markie.
Details of the lawsuit
According to the complaint, Jordan visited a Scheels store in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, on August 22, 2022, and “walked into and out of the gun department several times, appearing anxious and confused…but surveillance video from the store indicates most of the gun department employees were not paying attention at all.” Jordan allegedly asked to use the phone at one point but was denied. He also “fidgeted nervously and appeared to test whether the gun cabinets were locked as if he were considering trying to steal a firearm.”
Despite this, when Jordan — who “appeared much younger than his age, and well below the age of 21” — asked to see a 9mm Taurus G2C pistol, the complaint alleges that an employee (also named as a defendant) unlocked the gun cabinet and handed the pistol to him in “less than half a minute” without asking for identification or proof of age. Federal law prohibits licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to anyone under the age of 21.
The employee allegedly provided the handgun with an empty magazine, and no trigger lock or other disabling device, so the gun was operable. Additionally, the lawsuit states that Scheels left ammunition “easily accessible and openly available in abundance on the shelves in Scheels’ store” instead of locking it up, leaving it within Jordan’s reach. On at least two prior occasions, Jordan took ammunition from the store without paying for it.
These actions “made it all too easy for Jordan to take the gun Defendants unlawfully entrusted to him, load it with a bullet, and end his life moments later right in the Scheels store.”
To learn more about the firearm supply chain and other irresponsible gun dealers, click here.
SCHEELS’ LACK OF SAFEGUARDS
The complaint alleges that Scheels and its employee “knew or should have known that firearms laws and industry security standards exist to prohibit and/or hinder persons from obtaining guns in order to harm others or themselves. However, publicly available evidence from police departments, customers, and former employees makes clear that Scheels utilizes dangerous and careless practices with regard to the sale of firearms.”
The complaint provides examples of people simply walking out of Scheels locations with guns they didn’t pay for and even cites a routine by stand-up comedian Nate Bargatze “devoted to Scheels’ careless gun sales practices, illustrating the widely known nature of the problem.”
In announcing the lawsuit, Van Bogart said, “Far too many mothers share my pain. Too many families share an empty chair at the kitchen table because of suicide by firearm. Jordan should have never been handed that gun, let alone an unlocked weapon just steps away from accessible ammunition. My son should be alive today. I want to hold Scheels accountable to make sure no mother experiences a similar tragedy in the future.”