US settles over $100 million with relatives of Parkland attack

Relatives of victims of the 2018 Parkland attack will receive more than $100 million from the US state. The mega-settlement ends all lawsuits against the government for FBI negligence.

At least 17 people have been killed by a former student in the attack on a Florida school. Five weeks before the shooting, the FBI received word that the attacker had purchased guns and planned to attack a school. But this information had not been shared with the local authorities.

No IOU

A total of 40 lawsuits had been filed against the government by relatives of the victims. A settlement agreement has now been reached with those parties for $127.5 million, the Justice Department reports. The statement says the settlement is not an admission of guilt by the state.

At the time, the massacre caused great political unrest and protests across the country. The chief of police for the town of Parkland was school shooting punish.

‘Cowardly’

Then-President Donald Trump called a cop who was waiting outside the school building a coward. Surveillance footage showed the officer, effectively the school’s only armed security guard, standing outside the building as the shooting continued.

Shooter Nikolas Cruz confessed in October last year that he had shot and killed the seventeen victims. He was 19 at the time and was expelled from school for threats and intimidation.