Texas gunman had row with his mother-in-law before rampage
A GUNMAN murdered 26 people inside a Texas church after a row with his mother-in-law, it emerged last night.
Texans were left wondering how 26-year-old Devin Kelley was able to carry out the worst mass-shooting in the state’s history when he was not permitted to own a gun.
Kelley, who had been dishonourably discharged from the air force in 2012, tried to get a licence to carry a gun in Texas, but the state denied him, said Greg Abbott, the state governor.
“By all the facts that we seem to know, he was not supposed to have access to a gun. So how did this happen?” he asked.
Officials said that Kelley was jailed for a year in 2012, and then dishonour- ably discharged for spousal and child assault. That would, in theory, have made him ineligible to carry a firearm. Questions were last night being asked as to whether the discharge was correctly recorded. “In general, if an individual has a dishonourable discharge from the military they would be precluded from buying a firearm,” said Fed Milanowski, of the bureau of alcohol, firearms, tobacco and explosives.
Kelley reportedly lied about his assault conviction when he filled out the required background check paper- work to buy a Ruger assault rifle in April 2016 at a gun and sporting goods shop in San Antonio, police said. They said he owned four firearms, bought over four years in Colorado and Texas.
It also emerged yesterday that he had been involved in an altercation with his mother-in-law. Freeman Martin, of the Texas department of public safety, said there was “a domestic situation going on in this family”. “The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” he said, although she and her family were not in church on Sunday. She had received “threatening texts from him”, said Mr Martin, who did not identify the woman or elaborate on the messages.
Kelley had divorced his first wife, Tessa, in 2012 after his jail sentence. He remarried in 2014. “We know he expressed anger towards his mother-inlaw,” said Mr Martin, without clarifying which mother-in-law he meant.
Dressed in black tactical gear, and a face mask with a skull symbol on it, Kelley opened fire just after 11am on Sunday outside the church and then barged inside and began spraying the sanctuary with bullets.
His youngest victim was 18 months old; his oldest was 77. Half of the 26 killed were children, including eight members of one extended family.
Police said someone inside the church wrenched the rifle out of his hands inside the church, and Kelley then drove off, pursued by a neighbour and eventually committed suicide 11 miles away, having called his father to say he “would not make it”.
Donald Trump said that the shooting was not “a guns situation” and blamed it instead on Kelley’s mental health.
During a news conference in Tokyo, he was asked if he thought stricter gun laws could help prevent such mass shootings. “I think that mental health is your problem here,” he said.
Last night, it emerged that Kelley’s grandmother-in-law was among the victims. Lula White often volunteered at the church, according to friends and her Facebook profile.
The US air force said it was investigating its failure to enter Kelley’s domestic violence conviction – which legally barred him from buying or owning guns – into a national criminal database.