Crime
$144 Million Settlement reached in Texas’ Worst Mass Shooting
By Dana Malcolm
Staff writer
#USA, April 6, 2023 – Families of victims along with survivors of the 2017 Sutherland Springs mass murder have reached a tentative $144 million settlement with the US government, after a 2021 ruling agreed that the US Air Force’s negligence put them at risk.
In 2017, a former Air Force member Devin Kelley, walked into the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs Texas
It could have been prevented, the victims say, if the Air Force had provided the FBI with a criminal history of Kelly. Had it been provided; it would have been out in the open that Kelly had a history of domestic violence which would have prevented him qualifying for the purchase of a legal semi-automatic weapon.
It is that gun which he used to massacre more than two dozen innocent people. The US Federal Court had ruled in their favor in 2021.
The Air Force was initially held 60 percent responsible and ordered to pay a $230 million settlement in 2021 for the shooting.
The Justice Department had appealed on behalf of the Air Force, an action criticized as poor optics and putting undue stress on the plaintiffs. They decided on an out of court settlement which left the plaintiffs with a little over half of the original settlement.
The settlement is still to be finalized.
Some of the victims were pregnant, others as young as five and as old as 72, they also included Kelly’s grandmother-in-law.