Church gunman lied to DPS

Form for guard license omitted criminal history

Devin Patrick Kelley, the gunman who killed 26 people in a Sutherland Springs church on Nov. 5, failed to tell the truth to the Department of Public Safety earlier this year when he applied for a private security guard license and claimed he had no criminal convictions and had not been discharged from the military, according to documents released by the agency.

In his June 2017 application to be licensed in Texas as an unarmed security guard, Kelley answered “no” when asked whether he had ever been convicted of a felony; if he had been convicted of a Class A or Class B misdemeanor within the past five years; and whether he had been discharged from the military.

Kelley had actually received a “bad conduct” discharge from the Air Force in 2014 after he was convicted of assault charges in a domestic abuse case.

A jury at Holloman AFB in Alamogordo, N.M., gave Kelley a 12-month sentence after he pleaded guilty

to attacking his wife and baby stepson. The infant suffered a skull fracture in the attack, said retired Col. Don Christensen, a former head of Air Force prosecutors.

The assault charge related to the child’s injuries was a felony.

DPS performed its own background check on Kelley. But the Air Force never reported his conviction to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. DPS records show Kelley passed a background check on June 8, 2017.

The agency approved Kelley’s application to be a security guard that same day.

The Department of Public Safety released a copy of Kelley’s licensing files Monday in response to an open records request from the San Antonio ExpressNews. DPS spokesman Tom Vinger didn’t immediately say whether the agency had any concerns about the application process or whether it was examining ways to catch lies in future applications.

Vinger also didn’t say whether DPS faces any difficulties in confirming whether someone like Kelley had been discharged from the military. A bad conduct or dishonorable discharge should have raised a red flag — if DPS had been aware of it.

The Air Force has launched a review to find out why Kelley’s criminal conviction went unreported. The omission meant a man convicted of domestic abuse was able to pass criminal background checks, obtain a security license in Texas and buy firearms.

Kelley, 26, bought four guns from 2014 to 2017 — two in Colorado and two in Texas. All the purchases were approved through the federal background-check system.

Kelley purchased two of the weapons from Academy Sports and Outdoors stores in San Antonio, Academy’s corporate offices confirmed. Sources told the Express-News that one of them was a Ruger AR-556 military-style rifle, bought in April 2016.

The Ruger was the main weapon Kelley used when he drove to the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs and opened fire on a building full of Sunday worshippers.

Dressed in black tactical gear and wearing a bulletproof vest, Kelley went inside the church. Survivors said he shouted “Everybody die!” and walked down the aisle, shooting adults and children as they hid under pews and tried to shield their loved ones.

A neighbor, Stephen Willeford, heard the gunfire, grabbed his AR 15 rifle, and came running. Willeford saw Kelley armed with a handgun outside the church and the two men exchanged fire. Willeford shot Kelley in the leg and torso and Kelley fled in his Ford Expedition.

Willeford flagged down a nearby motorist, Johnnie Langendorff, and the pair chased Kelley, who finally shot himself in the head.