Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at a Black South Carolina church reached an $88 million settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre.
“For those killed in the shooting, the settlements range from $6 million to $7.5 million per claimant, the Department of Justice wrote in a release. “For the survivors, the settlements are for $5 million per claimant.”
“The mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church was a horrific hate crime that caused immeasurable suffering for the families of the victims and the survivors,” Attorney General Merrick Garland wrote in a statement. “Since the day of the shooting, the Justice Department has sought to bring justice to the community, first by a successful hate crime prosecution and today by settling civil claims.”
Months before the June 17, 2015 church shooting, Roof was arrested on Feb. 28 by Columbia, South Carolina police on the drug possession charge. But a series of clerical errors and missteps allowed Roof to buy the handgun he later used in the massacre.
“The nation grieved following the mass shooting at Mother Emanuel, and no one was more profoundly affected than the families of the victims and the survivors we have reached a settlement with today,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “The department hopes that these settlements, combined with its prosecution of the shooter will bring some modicum of justice to the victims of this heinous act of hate.”
The errors included wrongly listing the sheriff’s office as the arresting agency in the drug case, according to court documents. An examiner with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System found some information on the arrest but needed more to deny the sale, so she sent a fax to a sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office responded it didn’t have the report, directing her to the Columbia police.
Under the system’s operating procedures, the examiner was directed to a federal listing of law enforcement agencies, but Columbia police did not appear on the list. After trying the separate West Columbia Police Department and being told it was the wrong agency, the examiner did nothing more.
After a three-day waiting period, Roof went back to a West Columbia store to pick up the handgun.
The lawsuit for a time was thrown out, with a judge writing that an examiner followed procedures but also blasting the federal government for what he called its “abysmally poor policy choices” in how it runs the national database for firearm background checks. The suit was subsequently reinstated by a federal appeals court.
In 2016, Roof was convicted and sentenced to death, becoming the first person in the U.S. given the death sentence for a federal hate crime. In 2017, he pleaded guilty in a separate trial South Carolina state court to a number of other crimes in an effort to avoid a second death sentence, and was given nine consecutive life sentences in state prison. A federal appeals court earlier this year upheld his conviction and death sentence.
The slain included the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, pastor of the AME Emanuel Church, a state senator, as well as other pillars of the community. They all shared deep devotion to the church, known as Mother Emanuel, and passed that faith along to their families, many of whom offered Roof forgiveness when he appeared in court just days after the attack.
Speaking with the Associated Press ahead of the news conference, Pinckney’s eldest daughter recalled the night of the shooting and said she was committed to maintaining the legacy of her father, who died when she was 11.
“I’ve done whatever I can to keep his memory alive and to carry on his legacy throughout my life,” Eliana Pinckney, 17, told the AP. “Just to make sure that the memories that I have with him can be shared with other people, so that other people are inspired by the life that he lived, and the life that he would keep living if he was still here.”
“In spite of losing my wife, this brought the state together, it brought a church together, it brought a nation together,” Rev. Anthony Thompson, whose wife Myra was killed in the attack, told USA Today, applauding federal authorities for coming together on a settlement.
The FBI has acknowledged that Roof’s drug possession arrest should have prevented him from buying a gun.
The deal, which was reached earlier this month, is still pending a judge’s approval, Sellers said.
