Gabby Petito's family alerted Utah officials on Monday that they want to file a wrongful death lawsuit saying that police failed to notice that their daughter was in a life-threatening condition last year when detectives investigated a disagreement between her and her boyfriend.
Authorities claim the altercation happened weeks before her lover killed her when the pair was on a cross-country van vacation.
Gabby Petito's Family Sue Utah Police
According to the notice of claim, on Aug. 12, 2021, police in the tourist town of Moab overlooked signals that Petito was the victim of domestic violence at the hands of Brian Laundrie. The cops eventually let the pair go after asking them to spend a night apart.
As the inquiry proceeded, police body camera video of Petito, 22, obviously agitated, was widely watched, raising doubts about whether a better police reaction may have saved her death.
People must file notices of claims before they may sue government institutions, and the family's claim said that the case will seek $50 million in damages. Moab officials did not reply quickly to phone and email inquiries seeking comment on the report on Monday.
Petito went missing a month after the traffic stop, and her strangled death was recovered on the outskirts of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming on Sept. 19. Laundrie, 23, later committed suicide himself in Florida after being deemed the sole suspect in her death. Petito and Landrie are from Long Island, New York, according to USA Today.
The Moab City Police Department, its then-Chief Bret Edge, ex-Assistant Chief Braydon Palmer, and Officers Eric Pratt and Daniel Robbins were named in the notice of intent filing.
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Investigation Found Several Police Mistakes
The action will revolve on police contact with Petito and Laundrie on Aug. 12, 2021, just before her death, when they were on vacation in Utah. Following Petito's abduction, the exchange made headlines, with body camera footage showing Petito upset. According to the police report, Petito informed authorities that she had slapped and punched Laundrie first and that he had grabbed her face.
But, in the end, both Petito and Laundrie stated that they did not wish to bring charges against each other and that they loved each other. An independent assessment concluded in January this year that the police made multiple errors in handling the case, including misclassifying it as a mental/emotional health "break" rather than domestic violence, and failing to include specifics in their reports.
Their reports lacked information or evidence of any injuries Petito sustained, and no one appeared to inquire about a scrape on Petito's cheek, according to the independent study.
Lawyers for the Petito family argue in the new filing that if the police officers involved in the incident had received proper training - teaching them to conduct a thorough lethality assessment and recognize signs of abuse - they would have known Gabby was a victim of intimate partner violence and required immediate protection, as per NBC News.
An independent review determined earlier this year that police in Moab made many inadvertent blunders when they encountered Petito and Laundrie. According to the investigation, Petito 'was a long-term victim of domestic abuse, whether it be physically, mentally, and/or emotionally.'
Nichole Schmidt, Petito's mother, spoke about her daughter last week while presenting a $100,000 gift from the Gabby Petito Foundation to the National Domestic Violence Hotline to assist others in surviving stressful and abusive relationships. Schmidt stated last week in an interview that she still has many unanswered questions about what went wrong, Daily Mail reported.
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