COLORADO SPRINGS — As the criminal proceedings against accused Planned Parenthood shooter Robert Lewis Dear Jr. drag on, a lawsuit against the health care provider filed by four victims of the attack could be caught in limbo.

The judge overseeing the case against Dear is set to rule in the next several weeks on whether to release investigatory materials — including police reports, photos and video — to lawyers in the civil case. Dear’s defense team and prosecutors have objected, and even Fourth Judicial District Chief Judge Gilbert Martinez in a hearing Thursday raised concerns about sharing the records over how they could impact the criminal proceedings.

“Once you give out the discovery,” El Paso County District Attorney Dan May told Martinez, “you will no longer control it.”

Lawyers on both sides of the civil case say that without information from the prosecution of and investigation into Dear, who remains indefinitely incompetent to stand trial, it is unlikely their case can proceed.

“I think delaying this matter until the criminal case is resolved may postpone the civil case indefinitely,” Joseph Archuleta, an attorney representing the victims suing Planned Parenthood, said in court Thursday.

Two more victims have joined the civil suit — which alleges Dear’s attack was both predictable and preventable — since it was initially filed in Denver District Court in May.

Mandy Davis and Ammar Laskarwala took a Uber from Denver to the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic the morning of the Nov. 27, 2015, shootings. Davis was in an office and Laskarwala in the building’s reception area when Ke’Arre Stewart — an Iraq war veteran and one of the three people killed in the attack — burst in to warn that Dear had opened fire outside, according to Kirk McCormick, a lawyer representing the victims in the civil suit.

Davis and a Planned Parenthood employee barricaded themselves in the office with a file cabinet since there was no lock on the door, the lawsuit says, and Laskarwala ran into a bathroom and locked himself inside. McCormick says about an hour and a half into the shootings, Laskarwala was shot in the left lower chest before being evacuated by tactical officers.

Davis, who was not wounded, was rescued after more than four hours trapped in the clinic. According to the lawsuit, she was one of the last people evacuated from the building during the standoff.

The lawsuit says Laskarwala was taken to a Colorado Springs hospital, where medical staff failed to find the bullet lodged inside of him and eventually discharged him. Laskarwala and Davis, a couple, got into another Uber to ride back to Denver. On the trip back, Laskarwala’s condition deteriorated to the point where the pair headed to St. Joseph’s Hospital, McCormick recounted.

Laskarwala eventually was taken to Denver Health, where he underwent major surgery to remove the bullet inside him.

The lawsuit was first filed by Samantha Wagner, who was shot in the arm during the attack, and Stewart’s wife, Ashley, and on behalf of the couple’s child. McCormick says Davis and Laskarwala joined the filing after reading news reports of the civil case.

The lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial in July 2017, but McCormick says attorneys for Planned Parenthood have petitioned for a continuance. The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Dec. 2.

Planned Parenthood wrote in a motion that “because Dear’s sudden and random criminal act was the predominant cause of the shootings and injuries, the alleged security inadequacies on the premises were not substantial factors in causing the shooting and injuries.”

Dear faces 179 counts — including eight charges of first-degree murder — for the shootings. He is accused of opening fire in the clinic’s parking lot before storming inside with multiple guns.

Before the five-hour standoff was over, three people were dead and nine others were transported to hospitals with gunshot wounds.

University of Colorado-Colorado Springs police Officer Garrett Swasey, Stewart, 29, and Jennifer Markovsky, 35, were killed in the attack.

Dear has claimed responsibility for the rampage in court outbursts and interviews with the media, calling himself a “warrior for the babies.” As he was led into court on Thursday, he called out: “4,000 babies are murdered every day by Planned Parenthood.”