Lawyer argues Call of Duty maker can't be held responsible for actions of Uvalde, Texas, shooter

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A lawyer for the maker of the video game Call of Duty argued Friday that a judge should dismiss a lawsuit brought by families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School attack in Uvalde, Texas, saying the contents of the war game are protected by the First Amendment.

The families sued Call of Duty maker Activision and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, saying that the companies bear responsibility for promoting products used by the teen gunman.

Three sets of parents who lost children in the shooting were in the audience at the Los Angeles hearing.

Activision lawyer Bethany Kristovich told Superior Court Judge William Highberger that the “First Amendment bars their claims, period full stop.”

“The issues of gun violence are incredibly difficult,” Kristovich said. “The evidence in this case is not.”

She argued that the case has little chance of prevailing if it continues, because courts have repeatedly held that “creators of artistic works, whether they be books, music, movies, TV or video games, cannot be held legally liable for the acts of their audience.”

The lawsuit, one of many involving Uvalde families, was filed last year on the second anniversary of one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. The gunman killed 19 students and two teachers. Officers finally confronted and shot him after waiting more than an hour to enter the fourth-grade classroom.

Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the shooting, was among the parents who came from Texas to Southern California, where Activision is based, for the hearing.

“We traveled all this way, so we need answers,” Rubio said outside the courthouse. "It's our hope that the case will move forward so we can get those answers."

An attorney for the families argued during the hearing that Call of Duty exceeds its First Amendment protections by moving into marketing.

“The basis of our complaint is not the existence of Call of Duty," Katie Mesner-Hage told the judge. "It is using Call of Duty as a platform to market weapons to minors.”

The plaintiffs' lawyers showed contracts and correspondence between executives at Activison and gunmakers whose products, they said, are clearly and exactly depicted in the game despite brand names not appearing.

Mesner-Hage said the documents show that they actually prefer being unlabeled because “it helps shield them from the implication that they are marketing guns to minors,” while knowing that players will still identify and seek out the weapons.

Kristovich said there is no evidence that the kind of product placement and marketing the plaintiffs are talking about happened in any of the editions of the game the shooter played.

The families have also filed a lawsuit against Daniel Defense, which manufactured the AR-style rifle used in the May 24, 2022, shooting. Koskoff argued that a replica of the rifle clearly appears on a splash page for Call of Duty.

Josh Koskoff, the families' Connecticut-based lead attorney, also represented families of nine Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims in a lawsuit against gunmaker Remington and got a $73 million lawsuit settlement.

He invoked Sandy Hook several times in his arguments, saying the shooters there and in Uvalde shared the same gaming obsession.

Koskoff said the Uvalde shooter experienced “the absorption and the loss of self in Call of Duty.”

He said that immersion was so deep that the shooter searched online for how to obtain an armored suit that he didn't know only exists in the game.

Koskoff played a clip from Call of Duty Modern Warfare, the game the shooter played, with a first-person shooter gunning down opponents.

The shots echoed loudly in the courtroom, and several people in the audience slowly shook their heads.

“Call of Duty is in a class of its own," Koskoff said.

Kristovich argued for Activision that the game, despite its vast numbers of players, can be tied to only a few of the many U.S. mass shootings.

“The game is incredibly common. It appears in a scene on ‘The Office,’" she said. She added that it is ridiculous to assert that “this is such a horrible scourge that your honor has to essentially ban it through this lawsuit.”

Highberger told the lawyers he was not leaning in either direction before the hearing. He gave no time frame for when he will rule, but a quick decision is not expected.

The judge did tell the plaintiffs' lawyers that their description of Activision's actions seemed like deliberate malfeasance, where their lawsuit alleges negligence. He said that was the biggest hurdle they needed to clear.

“Their conduct created a risk of exactly what happened,” Mesner-Hage told him. “And we represent the people who are exactly the foreseeable victims of that conduct.”

Meta's attorneys will make arguments on a similar motion next month.

Javier Cazares, left, and Gloria Cazares arrive for a court hearing in a lawsuit between victims' families in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting and Meta Platforms on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

From left to right, Jerry Mata, Veronica Mata, Javier Cazares and Gloria Cazares arrive for a court hearing in a lawsuit between victims' families in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting and Meta Platforms on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

From left, Felix Rubio, Kim Rubio and attorney Josh Koskoff arrive for a court hearing in a lawsuit between victims' families in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting and Meta Platforms on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

Gloria Cazares, right, holds hands with Veronica Mata during a break in a court hearing in a lawsuit between victims' families in the 2022 Uvalde, Texas school shooting and Meta Platforms on Friday, July 18, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after the audacious U.S. military operation in Venezuela, President Donald Trump on Sunday renewed his calls for an American takeover of the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake of U.S. security interests, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”

The comments from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the ouster of Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro underscore that the U.S. administration is serious about taking a more expansive role in the Western Hemisphere.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?

“It’s so strategic right now. Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida. "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the U.S.-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: “They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don’t know.”

Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Trump has also pointed to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which rejects European colonialism, as well as the Roosevelt Corollary — a justification invoked by the U.S. in supporting Panama’s secession from Colombia, which helped secure the Panama Canal Zone for the U.S. — as he's made his case for an assertive approach to American neighbors and beyond.

Trump has even quipped that some now refer to the fifth U.S. president's foundational document as the “Don-roe Doctrine.”

Saturday's dead-of-night operation by U.S. forces in Caracas and Trump’s comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the United States, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

“I would therefore strongly urge the U.S. to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale,” Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that “the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected” as Trump has vowed to “run” Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Trump on Sunday mocked Denmark’s efforts at boosting Greenland’s national security posture, saying the Danes have added “one more dog sled” to the Arctic territory’s arsenal.

Greenlanders and Danes were further rankled by a social media post following the raid by a former Trump administration official turned podcaster, Katie Miller. The post shows an illustrated map of Greenland in the colors of the Stars and Stripes accompanied by the caption: “SOON."

“And yes, we expect full respect for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Amb. Jesper Møller Sørensen, Denmark's chief envoy to Washington, said in a post responding to Miller, who is married to Trump's influential deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

During his presidential transition and in the early months of his return to the White House, Trump repeatedly called for U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, and has pointedly not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island that belongs to an ally.

The issue had largely drifted out of the headlines in recent months. Then Trump put the spotlight back on Greenland less than two weeks ago when he said he would appoint Republican Gov. Jeff Landry as his special envoy to Greenland.

The Louisiana governor said in his volunteer position he would help Trump “make Greenland a part of the U.S.”

Meanwhile, concern simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government. U.S.-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's “Meet the Press,” said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards.” The secretary of state added that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government, including “who spies on who inside, to make sure there are no traitors.”

Trump said that “a lot” of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the U.S. military operation.

Trump also said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.

“It's going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It's going down for the count.”

Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela’s government and railed against the U.S. military operation, writing in a statement: “All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us.”

Rubio, a former Florida senator and son of Cuban immigrants, has long maintained Cuba is a dictatorship repressing its people.

“This is the Western Hemisphere. This is where we live — and we’re not going to allow the Western Hemisphere to be a base of operation for adversaries, competitors, and rivals of the United States," Rubio said.

Cubans like 55-year-old biochemical laboratory worker Bárbara Rodríguez were following developments in Venezuela. She said she worried about what she described as an “aggression against a sovereign state.”

“It can happen in any country, it can happen right here. We have always been in the crosshairs,” Rodríguez said.

AP writers Andrea Rodriguez in Havana, Cuba, and Darlene Superville traveling aboard Air Force One contributed reporting.

In this photo released by the White House, President Donald Trump monitors U.S. military operations in Venezuela, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Molly Riley/The White House via AP)