July 7, 2021
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(WASHINGTON) A federal judge found the United States Air Force 60% responsible for the mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in November 2017.
Devin Kelley opened fire inside the First Baptist Church, 40 miles outside of San Antonio, during a Sunday service and killed 26 people from ages 5 to 72, making it the worst mass shooting at a house of worship ever.
In a civil lawsuit brought by families and victims of the shooting against the government, Judge Xavier Rodriguez found that because Kelley was investigated and court-martialed for assaulting his then-wife and her stepson on an Air Force base, the service should have alerted the FBI that Kelley could not legally purchase a gun through its alert system.
U.S. Government Could Have Stopped Mass Shooter Who Opened Fire at Texas Church, Judge Finds Alberto Luperon
Devin Patrick Kelley
The U.S. government bears most of the liability for a disgraced former Air Force serviceman killing 26 people at a Texas Church, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, committed the mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017, but Air Force agents and leadership failed to get him into an FBI database due to a previous domestic violence conviction. That conviction, for abusing his then-wife and breaking his infant stepson’s skull, would have precluded him from having a gun. Instead, he was able to buy a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic firearm from a San Antonio gun store on April 7, 2016, according to the ruling. More than a year and a half later, he went on to kill 25 people, including a pregnant woman’s expected child, and to wound 20 others. He fled when chased by a perso
Judge: Air Force Largely At Fault For Texas Church Massacre
The Air Force did not properly submit Devin Patrick Kelley s criminal history to an FBI database, allowing him to legally purchase firearms used in the 2017 attack.
Scott Olson via Getty Images
Law enforcement officials are seen at the scene of the 2017 mass shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in Texas.
A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is largely to blame for a former airman carrying out Texas’ worst modern mass shooting after it failed to enter the gunman’s criminal history into a federal background database, allowing him to legally purchase firearms.
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