Category: Church shooting

DOJ Agrees to $145 Million Settlement Over Background Check Lapse in Texas Church Shooting Case

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has reached a tentative agreement with dozens of plaintiffs who allege the department failed to keep its criminal background check system up to date, and that these failures contributed to a deadly shooting at a church in Southerland Springs, Texas, in 2017. In November 2017, a gunman entered the…


Laguna Woods Church Shooting Suspect Pleads Not Guilty

SANTA ANA, Calif.—A Las Vegas man pleaded not guilty Aug. 19 to opening fire inside a Laguna Woods church in an alleged hate crime attack that killed a local doctor and injured five other parishioners. David Wenwei Chou, who was ordered held without bail, was scheduled to return to court Oct. 21 for a pretrial…


Taiwanese Church Shooting Suspect Is Charged With Hate Crimes

By Hannah Fry From Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES—A 68-year-old man accused of killing one person and injuring five others at a Taiwanese Presbyterian church in Laguna Woods has been charged with hate crime enhancements, Orange County prosecutors announced Friday. David Wenwei Chou of Las Vegas had previously been charged with murder, attempted murder, and…


DA: Church Shooter Wanted to ‘Execute’ as Many as Possible

SANTA ANA, Calif.—The man charged with opening fire on a Taiwanese church congregation of mainly elderly people in Southern California wanted to “execute in cold blood as many people in that room as possible,” a prosecutor said Tuesday in announcing murder, attempted murder, and other charges for the shooting that killed one person and wounded…


Accused Laguna Woods Church Shooter Charged With Capital Murder, 9 Other Counts

SANTA ANA, Calif.—A 68-year-old Chinese immigrant accused of opening fire on a Taiwanese congregation inside a Laguna Woods church, killing one person, and injuring five others in an attack, authorities said, was motivated by “political tensions between China and Taiwan,” was charged on Tuesday, May 17, with capital murder and nine other felonies. David Wenwei…


Air Force Ordered to Pay More Than $230 Million in Church Shooting

SAN ANTONIO—The U.S. Air Force must pay more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims’ families of a 2017 Texas church massacre for failing to flag a conviction that might have kept the gunman from legally buying the weapon used in the shooting, a federal judge ruled Monday. More than two dozen people…


Dylann Roof Seeks Rehearing on Church Shooting Conviction

Dylann Roof has filed the next step in his federal appeal, challenging a court’s confirmation of his conviction and death sentence for the 2015 racist slayings of nine members of a black South Carolina congregation. In a petition filed Wednesday with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, attorneys for Roof argued that the court’s…