Suit In School Shooting Moved From Moses Lake Wounded Girl Sues District, Loukaitis And His Parents

A lawsuit filed by Natalie Hintz, wounded when two classmates and a teacher were slain in a 1996 school shooting, will be heard outside Grant County, a judge has ruled.

Hintz is suing the Moses Lake School District and Barry Loukaitis, the student charged in the February 1996 shootings at Frontier Junior High.

The lawsuit also names Loukaitis’ parents, Terry and JoAnne Loukaitis.

The lawsuit, filed in October, does not specify damages, but Hintz previously filed a claim seeking $5 million from the school district.

On Wednesday, Grant County Superior Judge Ken Jorgensen ruled the lawsuit should be heard in another Eastern Washington county due to publicity here about the case.

“We have a highly charged atmosphere here, so charged that we can’t have an impartial jury chosen in Grant County,” Hintz’s attorney, James Roberts, told the court.

The lawsuit contends school officials knew or should have known Loukaitis was dangerous. It also says there was lax supervision and inadequate security at the school.

Loukaitis, who was 14 at the time of the shootings, will be tried as an adult in August in King County Superior Court.