Judge clears way for demolition of Texas church where 26 people were killed in 2017 shooting
FLORESVILLE, Texas — A judge on Monday cleared the way for the demolition of the small Texas church in Sutherland Springs where a gunman more than two dozen worshippers killed in 2017 in what is left the deadliest church shooting in US history.
After the shooting at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, the church converted the sanctuary where the attack took place into a memorial. First Baptist members subsequently voted in 2021 to demolish the building, but church leaders have not publicly said when it would be demolished.
A new church was completed for the community approximately one and a half years after the shooting.
District Judge Jennifer Dillingham earlier this month granted a temporary restraining order filed by several families seeking to halt the planned demolition. But on Monday, District Judge Russell Wilson denied a request to extend that restraining order, raising the possibility once again that the church could soon be demolished.
Lawyers for the church said at the hearing in Floresville that the church had the right to demolish the monument, San Antonio Express News reported. “This is a matter of church governance as to how the church handles its own property,” said church attorney Matthew Swantner.
Sam Fugate II, an attorney for the churchgoers who sought the restraining order, has said the goal of the lawsuit filed in May was to force a new vote on the building’s fate. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that some church members were wrongly removed from the church’s rolls before it was taken over.
Fugate told reporters after the hearing that without the temporary restraining order, they “no longer have an injunction that prevents the church from being destroyed,” but they hope “the defendants will honor the lawsuit and not tear the church down while we address some of these issues.”
Some who visited the memorial this month after news of its impending demolition spread said it was a place of solace. But the church said in a court document last week that the structure was a “constant and deeply painful reminder” and that church members had voted in 2021 to build an outdoor memorial there. Authorities put the death toll in the Nov. 5, 2017, shooting at 26 people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby.
In a court filing, the church denied the allegations in the lawsuit. A request for comment left by The Associated Press on a voicemail with the church was not immediately returned Monday, and one of the church’s attorneys told the AP after the hearing that they had no comment. The San Antonio Express-News reported that church officials and members who supported the demolition left the hearing without speaking to the media.
Sandy Ward, a supporter of the plaintiffs’ efforts, emerged from the hearing optimistic. Ward, who lost three family members in the shooting, told the Express-News: “As long as the building is still standing, there is hope.”
The man who opened fire at the church, Devin Patrick Kelley, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he was chased by bystanders and crashed his car. Investigators have said the shooting appeared to stem from a domestic dispute between Kelley and his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended church services but was not there on the day of the shooting.
Communities in the US have struggled with what should happen to the places where mass shootings took place. Demolition started last month on the three-storey building where 17 persons died in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School In Connecticut it was demolished and replaced.
Top-friendly markets in Buffalo, New York, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church In Charleston, South Carolina, where racist mass shootings took place, both have reopened. In Colorado, Columbine High School still exists, although the library, where most of the victims were killed, has been replaced.
In Texas, officials closed Robb Primary School in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting and plan to demolish the school.