U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez on Monday has ruled that the U.S. Air Force has to pay some $230 million to the victims and survivors of the deadly mass shooting that took place in a Texas church in 2017. The gunman was former U.S. Air Force airman Devin Patrick Kelley, who on November 5, 2017, entered the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs and open fired, killing up to 26 people, including a pregnant woman and the pastor's daughter.
"The losses and pain these families have experienced is immeasurable," Judge Rodriguez concluded, as per Reuters.
The decision came seven months after the court ruled that the Air Force is 60% responsible for the massacre carried out by Kelley, who the court said was 40% responsible for the murders.
The court decided that Kelley should not have been allowed to purchase firearms that he would then use to open-fire at the Texas church in 2017, following an admission in court to domestic assault back in 2012. The Air Force was "60% liable" for the deaths because it failed to record Kelley's domestic violence charges during his time in the Air Force in the federal database.
According to CBN News, an Air Force record of Kelley's domestic violence conviction, the former service member pleaded guilty to "multiple specifications of assault, including striking his wife, choking her with his hands and kicking her." Kelley was also convicted of hitting his stepson on the head and body "with a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm."
Months after his domestic violence case, Kelley escaped from a mental health center in New Mexico in 2012. He again had a brush with the law after he brought guns onto a military base and began threatening his superiors in the premises.
A year later in June 2013, police officers were called to Kelley's home in New Braunfels over a rape case. For three months, authorities investigated Kelley, but the investigations stopped once they found that the service member left Texas for Colorado. Comal County Sheriff Mark Reynolds said the case was then listed as inactive.
Pentagon rules state that convictions on military personnel in crimes including assault must be submitted to the FBI's Criminal Justice Investigation Services Division so it can be included in the National Criminal Information Center database. This was not the case for Kelley, whose case files were never submitted to the FBI.
Kelley fleed the Texas church in 2017 after murdering all 26 people and was chased by the police. He died after inflicting himself with a gunshot to the head. Judge Rodriguez wrote in his 185-page decision that he rejected the government's effort to "obfuscate its responsibility" by adopting a "no-fault" approach to the damages sought by Kelley's victims.
"Had the Government done its job and properly reported Kelley's information into the background check system - it is more likely than not that Kelley would have been deterred from carrying out the Church shooting," Judge Rodriguez wrote, as reported by the Christian Post.
The Air Force initially proposed a $31.8 million payment, while attorneys for the survivors proposed $418 million. The court ruled that the Air Force must pay $230 million.
