Deranged gunman was on radar
TEXAS church shooter Devin Kelley’s deadly rampage was fuelled by fury at his estranged wife and her family as well as a building obsession with mass shootings.
Kelley fired 450 rounds from a semiautomatic assault rifle and hit almost every member of the congregation gathered inside the First Baptist Church in tiny Sutherland Springs, killing 26 and injuring 20, on Sunday morning.
He was stopped by two heroic neighbours, one who shot him twice and another who chased the fleeing gunman in his pick-up truck for 13 minutes at more than 140km/h before Kelley ran off the road and ended his life.
Authorities yesterday blamed a clerical oversight for allowing convicted domestic abuser Kelley, 26, to buy four guns over the past year as his social media posts revealed his dark fascination for America’s gun massacres.
Having served a year in jail for fracturing his baby stepson’s skull ahead of his court martial from the air force in 2012, Kelley should have been flagged in three national databases banning sales to prospective gun owners.
However, the air force confirmed yesterday this had not happened. Kelley was therefore able to “legally’ purchase the Ruger AR556 used in the killings.
“Initial information indicates that Kelley’s domestic violence offence was not entered into the National Criminal Information Center database,” the air force said.
Christopher Combs, the FBI agent in charge of investigating the massacre, said Kelley’s name wasn’t flagged in a further two databases.
It came as the heroic neighbour who stopped Kelley was identified as plumber Stephen Willeford. An autopsy on the shooter revealed he died from a self- inflicted gunshot wound after being shot twice by Mr Willeford.
“I kept hearing the shots, one after another, very rapid shots – just ‘pop pop pop pop’ and I knew every one of those shots represented someone, that it was aimed at someone, that they weren’t just random shots,” Mr Willeford said of his decision to grab his rifle and run barefoot from his home towards the sound of the gunfire.
“I just wish I could have gotten there faster.”