Families of Charleston Church Shooting Victims to Receive $88M in Settlement with DOJ

The families of the nine victims murdered in a Charleston church shooting have settled with the Justice Department after a background check failed to catch Dylan Roof and ultimately allowed him to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre.

The families sued after the FBI’s investigation revealed the system used for conducting background checks failed to flag the sale of the gun Roof used to kill nine black people at Mother Emmanuel AME Church.

The $88 million settlement, which includes $63 million for the families of the slain and $25 million designated to the survivors, was set to be announced Thursday in Washington.

Bakari Sellers, an attorney who helped broker the agreement, explained the significance of the number “88,” which is typically associated with white supremacy, and the exact number of bullets Roof said he had taken with him to ambush the black churchgoers.

“We’ve given a big ‘F you’ to white supremacy and racism,” Sellers 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.”