Saskatoon StarPhoenix

AIR FORCE FAILED TO REPORT GUNMAN

-

HOUSTON The Air Force failed six times to report informatio­n that could have prevented the ex-airman who killed more than two dozen people in a Texas church from purchasing a gun, according to a government report released Friday.

The Department of Defence inspector general’s report details Devin Patrick Kelley’s decade-long history of violence, interest in guns and menacing of women.

That history culminated in Kelley’s November 2017 attack on the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, the church his wife and mother-in-law attended.

Kelley served almost five years in the Air Force, during which he was court-martialed and sentenced to one year for assaulting his wife and stepson. He was able to purchase four firearms after being discharged in 2014, three of which he carried into the church. The conviction would have been a red flag in the mandatory background check when Kelley tried to purchase a gun.

 ?? SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES) ??
SCOTT OLSON/GETTY IMAGES)

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada