Staff and wire reports

Families of three students wounded in the shootings at Columbine High School filed motions in federal court in Denver on Friday arguing that their lawsuit against the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office should go to trial.

Jefferson County officials had filed a motion asking that the lawsuit, filed by the families of Valeen Schnurr, Evan Todd and Jeanna Park, be dismissed. The county's lawyers said the suit did not state a claim against the defendants and that county officials were entitled to qualified immunity from suits.

The lawsuit alleges that sheriff's deputies failed to act fast enough to stop Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold when they opened fire at Columbine on April 20, 1999. It also charges that deputies did not do enough to rescue the victims.

The gunmen killed 13 people and wounded 21 others before committing suicide.

In the motion filed Friday, lawyers for the wounded students and their families argued that court precedent severely limits the circumstances under which a lawsuit can be dismissed for failure to state a claim.

They also said the county's claim to limited immunity was based on the absence of a "special relationship" between the victims and the deputies who responded to the shootings.

But a special relationship did exist, the lawyers said, because some of the students were trapped by the gunmen after deputies directed them to remain in the school until help could arrive.

The motion also accused county officials of "stonewalling" the families by not releasing information about the shooting until after the one-year statute of limitations on filing lawsuits expired.