Federal Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled the Air Force was 60% responsible for the mass shooting at a church in Texas in 2017 after failing to report gunman David Kelley’s domestic abuse record to the FBI.
July 7 (UPI) — A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that the U.S. Air Force was largely responsible for the November 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Judge Xavier Rodriguez said the Air Force “proximately caused the deaths and injuries” of the shooting victims as it failed to alert the FBI that gunman Devin Kelley could not legally purchase a firearm after he was investigated and court-martialed for assaulting his then-wife and her stepson on an Air Force base. “The court concludes that the government failed to exercise reasonable care in its undertaking to submit criminal history to the FBI,” Rodriguez wrote in the civil case brought by families of the victims. “The government’s failure to exercise reasonable care increased the risk of physical harm to the general public, including plaintiffs.
