Pay victims of church shooting

Like rolling waves at a beach, mass shootings in this country occur with such tidal regularity the details tend to mingle and merge. From Sandy Hook to Aurora, San Bernardino to Orlando, Las Vegas to Parkland, Thousand Oaks to Pittsburgh, Santa Fe to El Paso, Buffalo to Uvalde, to name a few, we look on in horror, anger and frustration and then get on with our lives until another and then another claims our attention.

It goes without saying that for survivors, family members and to some extent whole communities, nothing will ever be the same after the random horror of a mass shooting. The best a nation can do in some instances — if we continue in our refusal to substantively address the core issues — is to offer compensation for the pain, suffering and pecuniary loss that is the new reality for the men, women and children trying to cope with life after mass murder.

In two earlier mass-shooting cases involving federal liability, the 2015 mass shooting at Mother Emanuel Baptist Church in Charleston, S.C., and the 2018 Parkland School shooting in Florida, the U.S. Justice Department settled with survivors and family members, paying Parkland victims a total of $127 million and the Charleston church victims $88 million.

Earlier this year, U.S. Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the Western District of Texas ordered the Air Force to pay victims of the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting $230 million in damages. His ruling was based on the uncontested finding that the Air Force on six separate occasions failed to forward the shooter's criminal history to the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division.

Had that information been submitted as required by law, the shooter would have been banned from purchasing the guns he used to massacre 26 worshipers and wound 22 more at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs during a Sunday-morning service. Had the Air Force simply followed protocol, he might have ended up buying a gun on the street or from an individual, but not from a licensed gun dealer. Rodriguez ruled that the Air Force was 60 percent responsible and the shooter 40 percent responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history.

Now $230 million is a lot of money, but keep in mind the judge was parceling out varying amounts to 84 individuals. “Ultimately, there is no satisfying way to determine the worth of these families' pain,” he wrote in his 185-page decision, noting that he considered pain, anguish, physical impairment, medical expenses and loss of future earnings in his judgment.

Those the judge deemed eligible to receive compensation include a church member who was 39 when he lost three generations of his own family, nine members in all, including his mother, father, brother, pregnant wife, niece and three step-children. They include a lively 6-year-old girl who loved racing around the churchyard with her pals after services, before, that is, her small body was ravaged by three blasts from an AR-15; she survived but can no longer run or even stand for long periods because of permanent damage to her left leg. It includes a mother who dropped off her teenage daughter at church in the midst of a typical mother-daughter tiff; that was the last time she saw her beautiful child.

A young father paralyzed from the waist down, An older woman shot multiple times and now requiring around-the-clock care from her adult daughter. A little boy who has endured more than 30 surgeries since being shot five times. Their stories are heartrending, and financial compensation can't repair broken hearts. What it can do is help pay for lifelong medical treatment, provide for therapy and counseling, help with bills for those no longer able to work. (And, of course, a sizable share goes to attorneys.)

Such was Rodriguez's plan for the people of Sutherland Springs. Now, that plan may never come to fruition.

Two weeks after the horrendous Uvalde shooting, the U.S. Justice Department announced, in essence, that the Sutherland Springs survivors don't deserve the compensation Rodriguez calculated. The government — for no good reason that we can determine — appealed his ruling.

What that means, at best, is that the Sutherland Springs plaintiffs will have to wait months, if not years, before they ever see a dime of compensation. What it means, at worst, is that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals could decide that the plaintiffs deserve only a pittance, maybe nothing. Whatever the outcome, the Sutherland Springs survivors and family members can anticipate having to recount to a court yet again the horrendous details of that day in November nearly five years ago.

The Justice Department offered no rationale for its decision to appeal, beyond a written statement from department spokesperson Dena Iverson: "The department will continue to engage in a review of this case while it remains on appeal in the Fifth Circuit, considering all options for reaching a resolution, including possible mediation or settlement . ... By filing this notice, the government continues its close review of the legal issues presented.”

What those issues are, Iverson didn't say. Does the government believe the settlement was too large? Justice Department lawyers insisted on a figure close to $31 million; plaintiff 's lawyers asked for an amount almost 10 times that much. St. Mary's University School of Law dean A.J. Bellido de Luna told San Antonio's KENS-TV that had the case gone to a jury the settlement might have exceeded a billion dollars. Rodriguez, with sole discretion in the case, settled on $230 million.

Is the Justice Department prepared to argue that background checks are ineffectual, that the Air Force's failure to send the shooter's criminal record to the FBI would have made no difference? It's hard to believe the Biden administration would countenance such a legal strategy, particularly at a time when the White House is fighting for expanded background checks and other tools to somehow quell the senseless gun violence afflicting this nation.

Or, is the Justice Department simply trying to run out the clock, as one of the plaintiffs' attorneys suggests. Five elderly victims have died awaiting the final verdict.

Last fall, the Justice Department announced its settlement with victims' families and survivors of the shooting at the iconic Mother Emanuel AME Church. The settlement came after the FBI was found to be negligent when it failed to stop the sale of a gun by a licensed firearms dealer to the shooter, who used it to kill nine people in hopes of igniting a race war.

“The department is pleased to bring closure to this long-running litigation,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton of the Justice Department's Civil Division. “These settlement agreements represent another chapter in the justice system's efforts to address this horrific event, following the government's prosecution and conviction of the shooter for federal hate crimes.”

And Sutherland Springs? It's been nearly five years. Where's “another chapter” for more than 80 devastated survivors and family members? Where's the “closure”? The Justice Department needs to reassess its illconsidered decision to appeal a decision designed to bring a bit of relief to a little country church east of San Antonio, where survivors and family members are doing their best just to get by.

Where’s ‘another chapter’ for more than 80 survivors and relatives?