Families of Charleston Church Shooting Victims, DOJ Reach Settlement

By Alyssa Wilson Published: October 28, 2021

Families of Charleston Church Shooting Victims, DOJ Reach Settlement

The men of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Inc. lead a crowd of people in prayer outside the Emanuel AME Church, Friday, June 19, 2015, after a memorial in Charleston, S.C. Thousands gathered at the College of Charleston TD Arena to bring the community together after nine people where shot to death at the church on Wednesday. The current brick Gothic revival edifice, completed in 1891 to replace an earlier building heavily damaged in an earthquake, was a mandatory stop for the likes of Booker T. Washington and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Still, Emanuel was not just a church for the black community. (AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton)

In Summary

The Department of Justice has reached a million-dollar settlement with the families of the people killed by Dylann Roof in a 2015 mass shooting at a Black church in South Carolina.

WARNING – This story contains details about gun violence. Resources for those triggered by this content are available here.

The families of the nine Black people killed in the Charleston church shooting at the Mother Emanuel AME church in South Carolina have reached a settlement with the Department of Justice.

According to The Washington Post, the settlement involves the background check Dylann Roof passed which allowed him to purchase the gun he used in the mass shooting.

The $88 million settlement includes $63 million for the families of the victims and $25 million for the survivors. Bakari Sellers, an attorney who worked on the agreement, said the number 88 was intentional because it’s significant to hate groups. “We’ve given a big ‘F you’ to white supremacy and racism,” he told the Associated Press. “We’re doing that by building generational wealth in these Black communities, from one of the most horrific race crimes in the country.”

Before the mass shooting on June 17, 2015, Roof was arrested in February in Columbia, South Carolina, on a drug possession charge. Numerous clerical errors allowed Roof to buy the gun he used to kill nine people in the shooting, The Washington Post reported. The FBI has said Roof’s drug possession arrest should have prevented him from purchasing a gun.

The deal is still pending a judge’s approval, according to Sellers. “All nine of these families have been so strong, and they deserve this closure,” he said. “Of course, we wanted more, but this is just, and this is justice, and finally, these families can say that they got it.”

In 2017, Roof became the first person in the country to be sentenced to death for a federal hate crime. He attempted to get the sentence overturned, but a court upheld the decision.