Crews begin demolishing church in Texas where gunman killed more than two dozen in 2017

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas – On Monday, crews began demolishing a Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen believers in 2017using heavy machinery to demolish the small building even after some families tried to preserve the scene of the deadliest church shooting in US history.

A judge opened the way Last month, the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs demolished the sanctuary where the attack occurred, which until now had been maintained as a memorial. This decision came after some families filed suit earlier this year hoping to get a new vote on the building’s fate after church members voted in 2021 to oust him.

Authorities estimate the death toll from the November 5, 2017, shooting of 26 people, including a pregnant woman and her fetus.

John Riley, an 86-year-old church member, watched with sadness and disappointment as the long arm of a yellow bulldozer swung a heavy claw at the building repeatedly.

“The devil got what he wanted,” Riley said, “I wouldn’t be the man I am without that church.”

He said he would pray that God would “punish those” who initiated the demolition.

“That was God’s house, not their house,” Riley said.

A new church it was completed for the congregation about a year and a half after the shooting.

In early July, a Texas judge granted a temporary restraining order wanted by some families. But another judge later denied a request to extend that order, triggering the demolition. In court filings, church lawyers called the structure “a constant and very painful reminder.”

Lawyers for the church argued that it was their right to demolish the memorial, while lawyers for the families who filed the lawsuit said they just hoped to get a new vote.

In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that some church members were unfairly removed from the church’s rolls before the vote was taken. In a court filing, the church denied the allegations in the lawsuit.

A woman who answered the phone at the church said Monday she had no comment and hung up.

The man who opened fire at the church, Devin Patrick Kelley, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased by bystanders and crashing his car. Investigators said the shooting appeared to stem from a domestic dispute involving Kelley and her mother-in-law, who sometimes attended church services but was not present the day of the shooting.

Communities across the US have struggled with what should happen to the sites of mass shootings. Last month, demolition began in the three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. After the 2012 shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, it was demolished and replaced.

Top Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, and Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where mass racist shootings occurred, both have reopened. In Colorado, Columbine High School it still exists, although its library, where most of the victims were killed, has been replaced.

In Texas, authorities closed Robb Elementary in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting and plans to demolish the school.

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Stengle reported from Dallas.