Demolition of Texas Church Where Gunman Killed Dozens Begins
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — Crews on Monday started to dismantle a Texas church where a shooter murdered more than two dozen worshippers in 2017, using heavy equipment to demolish the small structure despite some families trying to keep intact the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history.
Last month, a judge authorized the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs to raze the sanctuary where the incident occurred, which previously had been maintained as a memorial.
Members of First Baptist decided in 2021 to demolish the structure against the objections of some in the small community. Authorities confirmed that 26 individuals, including a pregnant woman and her unborn child, lost their lives in the Nov. 5, 2017, shooting.
John Riley, an 86-year-old church member, observed with sorrow and dismay as the extended arm of a yellow excavator repeatedly struck the building.
“The devil prevailed,” Riley remarked, “I would not be the individual I am without that church.”
He expressed his intention to pray for God to “penalize the individuals” who initiated the demolition.
“That was God’s dwelling, not their residence,” Riley stated.
A new church was constructed for the congregation approximately eighteen months after the shooting.
During the summer, a Texas judge granted a temporary restraining order requested by certain families. However, another judge subsequently rejected a petition to prolong that order, leading to the demolition. In legal documents, the church’s attorneys described the building as a “constant and very agonizing reminder.”
A woman who answered the phone at the church indicated on Monday that she had no statement and then terminated the call.
The individual who initiated the shooting in the church, Devin Patrick Kelley, perished from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being pursued by onlookers and crashing his vehicle. Investigators have indicated that the shooting seemed to result from a domestic disagreement involving Kelley and his mother-in-law, who occasionally attended services at the church but was absent on the day of the incident.
Communities throughout the U.S. have struggled with what should occur to the locations of mass shootings. Last month, demolition commenced on the three-story building where 17 individuals lost their lives in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Following the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, it was demolished and replaced.
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Stengle reported from Dallas.