Judge Says The Air Force Is Mostly Responsible For A 2017 Texas Church Shooting

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A federal judge has ruled the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for an ex-serviceman killing over two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 because it failed to submit his criminal history to a database, which should've prevented him from buying guns.

Judge Says The Air Force Is Mostly Responsible For A 2017 Texas Church Shooting
The U.S. Air Force failed to submit a former serviceman's criminal history into a database, which should have prevented him from purchasing firearms later used in a shooting, a federal judge ruled.
npr.org
1:29 PM · Jul 7, 2021

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/07/1013832724/judge-says-the-air-force-is-mostly-responsible-for-a-2017-texas-church-shooting

AUSTIN, Texas — A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force is mostly responsible for a former serviceman killing more than two dozen people at a Texas church in 2017 because it failed to submit his criminal history into a database, which should have prevented him from purchasing firearms.

U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez in San Antonio wrote in a ruling signed Wednesday that the Air Force was "60% responsible" for the massacre at First Baptist Church in the small town of Sutherland Springs, where Devin Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service. Authorities put the official death toll at 26 because one of the 25 people killed was pregnant.

The attack remains the worst mass shooting in Texas history.

"The trial conclusively established that no other individual — not even Kelley's own parents or partners — knew as much as the United States about the violence that Devin Kelley had threatened to commit and was capable of committing," Rodriguez wrote.

Kelley had served nearly five years in the Air Force before being discharged in 2014 for bad conduct, after he was convicted of assaulting a former wife and stepson, cracking the child's skull. The Air Force has publicly acknowledged that the felony conviction for domestic violence, had it been put into the FBI database, could have prevented Kelley from buying guns from licensed firearms dealers, and also from possessing body armor.

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