# violence
A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. Air Force must pay more than $230 million in restitution to survivors and victims' families of the 2017 Texas church massacre for failing to show convictions that could have prevented the shooter from legally purchasing the weapons used in the shooting. SAN Antonio on Monday.
Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire during a Sunday service at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, killing more than two dozen people, including eight children. Kelley, who died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound after being chased by two men who heard gunshots at the church, had served in the Air Force before the attack.
U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled in July that the Air Force was "60 percent responsible" for the attack because it failed to submit Kelley's conviction for the attack while he was in the Air Force to a national database.
Kelley pleaded guilty to multiple counts of assault, including assaulting his wife, putting his hands around her neck and kicking her, according to an Air Force transcript from his court-martial. He was also found guilty of striking his stepson on the head and body "with a force likely to cause death or grievous bodily harm".
In 2012, months before his conviction in the domestic violence case, Kelley briefly fled a mental health center in New Mexico and got into trouble for bringing guns onto a military base and threatening his superiors there, according to police reports.