RICHMOND, Va. — Several weeks after families of the victims of the 5/31 Virginia Beach mass shooting held a news conference, calling for justice and more support from the state, the six families are now requesting a specific amount of state funding.
On Wednesday, family members were at the state capitol building in Richmond to be honored and recognized by state lawmakers.
While there, the group gave members of the Virginia General Assembly a letter, asking for $40 million from the state’s 2022-2024 budget to assist with their "broken bodies, broken hearts and broken minds" in the aftermath of losing their loved ones.
On May 31, 2019, a disgruntled city employee shot and killed 12 people inside Building Two at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. The FBI later found that the shooter was, in part, motivated by perceived workplace grievances which he fixated on for years.
“Our families and the survivors of the massacre have been unsupported for the last four years,” Sarah Gayle Leonard said, who is the daughter of victim Mary Louise Gayle. "Dramatically under-supported."
The letter states that Virginia Beach's "lack of action has left [the families] abandoned, forgotten, and disregarded and claims the city was “misleading” when it “bragged” about paying the families $1.5 million in the aftermath of the shooting. “In actuality,” the letter continues, “the total $1.5 million received was from workman's compensation that was divided between 11 families of the deceased – with a disregard for the 12th family member. She has received nothing from the city of Virginia Beach."
“This wasn’t made today, we’ve made this request over some time, because these families have suffered for four years, it’s not just in the last couple of days," former Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax said, who's representing seven of the 12 victims' families but is advocating for all families in this case. "I was the Lieutenant Governor for four years, saw us spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on what we thought and deemed a priority... can we finally make this a priority?"
"Three and a half years have gone by, and we still have not been treated fairly," the letter reads.
The letter also mentions other events in the months after the shooting that caused victims’ families further frustration, including the denial of health benefits for one family and the renovations made on the building where the shooting happened to turn it into a new police headquarters despite overwhelming support from residents to tear it down and replace it with a memorial.
"You can’t call it the most devastating day in Virginia Beach and wash your hands of it by next tourist season," Gayle Leonard said. "That’s what it feels like.”
If the state grants the families the money they are requesting, $25 million would be split among the families of the victims and $15 million would be given to the city employees who were directly impacted by the violence and survived the shooting.
The letter says that this is a small amount compared to the totality of the budget, which is roughly $80 billion.
"These needed funds will meaningfully help all [of the] families affected by this devastating event," the letter says. "...The heartbreak that we have experienced has only been compounded by the trauma of being ignored and forgotten by our city."
5/31 mass shooting families honored in Richmond
Wednesday's visit to Richmond also comes about a month after a letter penned by the VTV Family Outreach Foundation was released, calling on Gov. Glenn Youngkin, Attorney General Jason Miyares, the Virginia General Assembly, and leaders with the City of Virginia Beach to help the families.
The foundation, created by survivors and families of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, expressed a desire for those leaders to extend the same "compassion, empathy, courage, grace and leadership" to the Virginia Beach families as was shown to those affected by the Virginia Tech tragedy with "the VT settlement."
In 2008, Tim Kaine, who was governor of Virginia at the time, announced an $11 million settlement offered by the state to families of 24 of the 32 people killed in the Virginia Tech shooting, as well as 18 people who were injured and survived. A judge approved that settlement later that same year.
"We really want to make sure these families aren't left behind, treated the same way as the Virginia Tech families, and those families have said they want just that," Fairfax said.