Six years after the fatal shooting at Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, the survivors and victims' families have reached a settlement with the Justice Department.

The settlement, which was agreed on by the department on Thursday, provides victims' families $63 million and survivors $25 million, totaling $88 million, NBC News reports.

“The mass shooting at Mother Emanuel AME Church was a horrific hate crime that caused immeasurable suffering for the families of the victims and the survivors,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said on Thursday, according to NBC News. “Since the day of the shooting, the Justice Department has sought to bring justice to the community, first by a successful hate crime prosecution and today by settling civil claims.”

Nine people were gunned down by self-proclaimed white supremacist Dylann Roof while the churchgoers were attending bible study at the historic church. Roof later confessed to the crime, saying he wished to incite a race war.

In 2016, he was found guilty of 33 counts of federal hate crimes, The Washington Post reports. The jury took three hours to reach a verdict and he was sentenced to death, Blavity previously reported. Roof had previously been arrested on a felony drug charge and despite a background check being underway, he was able to obtain the gun he ended up using during the shooting.

The FBI later discovered he had pleaded guilty to the drug charge.

Families of the victims sued the FBI after learning of such information, saying the department failed to prevent Roof from buying the gun.

"We are all sick this happened," Former FBI Director James Comey said after discovering the mistake. "We wish we could turn back time."

Bakari Sellers, a lawyer for the victims, said the total number of the settlement, $88 million, is a significant number used among white supremacists, The Washington Post reports.

Photos of Roof before the shooting show him wearing a shirt with the number "88" on it. He had also brought 88 bullets with him to the church.

Rev. Clementa Pinckney's daughter, Eliana, spoke outside of the Justice Department's headquarters on Thursday.

“They can’t bring my father back, that’s never going to happen, but they’re doing whatever they can to acknowledge the fact that this hurts,” she said. “To see the government acknowledge the fact that racism still exists, and how prevalent it is in our community, and then actively try to combat it in every way that they can, and to acknowledge that gun violence is an issue and to do everything they can to correct a mistake … is so important.”

Charleston-Nine

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