San Antonio Shooting Could Have Been Prevented
SUTHERLANDS SPRINGS, TX - On Sunday November 5, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history occurred in a small town baptist church, killing 26 and injuring 20 innocent people. The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley was a 26 year old white man living in the area. On the morning of the incident, he was spotted at a gas station dressed in all black, holding a black mask with a white skull-typeface on it. No one reported any sign of suspicion, which provided the suspect with an easy attack.
Every last detail of the shooting was well thought out by Kelley. The church he chose to have his shooting rampage was the church his mother-in-law attended, along with many other members of his wife’s family. “We know that he expressed anger towards his mother-in-law, who attends this church,” a local member of the community stated. He was obsessed with the domestic dispute between him and his mother-in-law, and had sent threatening messages to her; the latest one being on that Sunday morning, not long before the shooting. His plan of murdering his mother-in-law was not successful because she did not attend church services that day. Instead, he killed his grandmother-in-law in the attack along with many others. Kelley was not shot and killed by a police officer, but instead was shot twice by an armed citizen: once in the torso and once in the leg. A third gunshot wound found to be a self-inflicted shot to his head. The suspect was found dead in the driver’s seat of his vehicle.
The crimes he committed before he executed the shooting should have prevented him from buying guns, but no crime he was responsible for was put into official criminal record. In 2014, Kelley was dishonorably discharged from the Holloman Air Force Base located in New Mexico for bad conduct. Earlier that year he was charged with misdemeanor count of mistreatment, neglect and cruelty to animals in El Paso County, Colorado, where he lived at one point. Four witnesses called to report Kelley punching, choking, and throwing a dog.
His string of legal troubles began in 2012, when he was court martialed and sentenced to a year in military prison for assaulting his wife and child. There were multiple reports of domestic abuse before we went into the Air Force. His turbulent and violent past was shaped from his severe mental health issues.
Since nothing was entered into the National Criminal Information Center Database, this man posed no threat to the lives of others and was granted full freedom to murder innocent people. Law Enforcement is responsible for not taking action soon enough to prevent this horrific incident from happening.
