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FILE – In this June 19, 2015 file photo, police tape surrounds the parking lot behind the AME Emanuel Church as FBI forensic experts work the crime scene, in Charleston, S.C.Convicted Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof was given nine consecutive life sentences in prison after he pleaded guilty to state murder charges Monday, March 29, 2021 leaving him to await execution in a federal prison and sparing his victims and their families the burden of a second trial.(AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton, File)
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Bakari Sellers, the attorney for the families of victims killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre, speaks with reporters outside the Justice Department, in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at the Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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South Carolina state senators Gerald Malloy, right, and Ronnie Sabb, left, look on as Malana Pinckney, 12, center, a daughter of the Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was killed killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting, speaks with reporters outside the Justice Department, in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Families of nine victims killed in a South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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Bakari Sellers, the attorney for the families of victims killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre, speaks with reporters outside the Justice Department, in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at the Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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Attorney Bakari Sellers, a South Carolina lawyer and former state lawmaker, speaks with The Associated Press on Thursday Oct. 28, 2021, about a settlement reached with the U.S. Department of Justice and families of those slain in a 2015 racist attack on Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Meg Kinnard)
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Malana Pinckney, 12, a daughter of Reverend Clementa Pinckney who was killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church shooting, speaks with reporters outside the Justice Department, in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Families of nine victims killed in a South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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Bakari Sellers, the attorney for the families of victims killed in the 2015 Mother Emanuel AME Church massacre, speaks with reporters outside the Justice Department, in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021. Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at the Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
WASHINGTON — Families of nine victims killed in a racist attack at a Black South Carolina church have reached a settlement with the Justice Department over a faulty background check that allowed Dylann Roof to purchase the gun he used in the 2015 massacre.
“We cannot bring back those 9 victims. We can not erase those scars that those survivors have. But what we do here today as lawyers and these families is we say we stand on justice,” said attorney Bakari Sellers.
Sellers says the settlement is a monumental moment in the fight against racism and hate.
“That bible study caused us so much pain and so much hurt. But it showed us also that things like justice could be a verb,” said Sellers.
The Justice Department will pay $88 million, which includes $63 million for the families of the slain and $25 million for survivors of the shooting, it was announced Thursday.
“It allows me and my sister to have the opportunity to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make sure my fathers legacy doesn’t go away,” said Eliana Pinchkney.
Her father, Rev. Clementa Pinckney was one of the victims. Her mother and sister survived. Today, she thanked those close to her.
“That is something that is so hard to grasp with and so hard to understand and so hard to grow from. But it’s so important that I’ve had a community behind me to help me get to the place where I am now,” said Pinckney.
Weeks before the church shooting, Roof was arrested 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 killings.
In August, A federal appeals court upheld Dylann Roof’s conviction and death sentence. He was the first person in the US to be sentenced to death for a federal hate crime.
