The Department of Justice of the United States has agreed to engage in a settlement arising from the November 2017 mass shooting at a Texas church estimated at $144.5 million. 26 deaths resulted from the mass shooting and had left 22 other people injured.
The Federal Court in 2021 made the U.S. government liable for the damages caused by the shooting, as the US Air Force failed to provide reasonable care by failing to provide the criminal's history to the FBI's background checking system.
DOJ Agrees Settlement for Victims of Sutherland Springs Church Shooting
According to the report shared in CNN, Devin Patrick Kelley in which is the suspect in the shooting, was an ex-member of the US Air Force; it is believed that the Air Force had not given information to the civilian law enforcement of his court-martial conviction for domestic assault in which this may have prevented him from buying and carrying firearms.
Some parts of the settlements still require court approval. Although the grief of the Sutherland Springs shooting cannot be lessened by money, Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta said that the announcement ends the legal proceedings and closes a difficult chapter for the victims.
In November 2017, the shooter was dress in all-black tactical gear, opened fire on the churchgoers at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that, claimed the lives of 26 people, including the pastor's 14-year-old daughter and the criminal's grandmother-in-law and 22 others had been left injured. A local man with a rifle confronted the shooter as he left the church, and they engaged in gunfire. After fleeing in his car, the shooter was later discovered dead from his own gunshot wound.
According to another source, NPR, the judge ordered the government to pay the families $230 million. Still, the DOJ appealed the decision in January, claiming that it could not be held primarily accountable and objecting to paying damages. The National Rifle Association have commended this decision, which surprised the gun control groups and organizations.
This will be the third time the United States government will compensate the victims' families after a massacre if the settlement comes to authorization. The other settlements include Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 and Parkland, Florida, in 2018.
The families of the Sutherland Springs shooting, according to trial lawyer Jamal Alsaffar, have prevailed in two legal battles against the federal government while experiencing great suffering and loss. According to ABC News, even though the settlements are needed to be approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland, it would put an end to the DOJ's drawn-out and uneasy attempt to overturn a judge's ruling that the government was mostly to fault for the massacre.
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Related Cases of Settlements on Massacres
In the related article in CBS News, Settlements of $127.5 million and $88 million were reached in situations similar to the Parkland, Florida high school massacre and the Charleston, South Carolina, Black church shooting. In response to claims alleging that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's mistakes led to the shootings, settlements were reached.
After several months of mediation in an effort to change the initial verdict, Sutherland Springs filed an appeal and offered a settlement. The extended Sutherland Springs families were first offered a total $31.8 million by the government, which argued that settlements from other instances shouldn't serve as a precedent for this one.
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