Site of deadliest church shooting in US history is torn down over protests by some Texas families

Crews have torn down a Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen worshippers in 2017 Site of deadliest church shooting in US history is torn down over protests by some Texas families SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — Crews on Monday tore down a Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen worshippers in 2017, using heavy machinery to raze the small building even after some families sought to preserve the scene of the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history. A judge cleared the way last month for the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs to tear down the sanctuary where the attack took place, which until now had been kept as a memorial. Church members voted in 2021 to tear it down, but some families in the community of less than 1,000 people filed a lawsuit hoping for a new vote on the building’s fate. Authorities put the number of dead in the Nov. 5, 2017, shooting at 26 people, including a pregnant woman and her unborn baby. John Riley, an 86-year-old member of the church, watched with sadness and disappointment as the long arm of a yellow excavator swung a heavy claw into the building over and over. “The devil got his way,” Riley said, “I would not be the man I am without that church.” He said he would pray for God to “punish the ones” who put the demolition in motion. “That was God’s house, not their house,” Riley said. Terrie Smith, president of the Sutherland Springs Community Association, visited often over the years, calling it a place where “you feel the comfort of everybody that was lost there.” Among those killed in the shooting were a woman who was like a daughter to Smith — Joann Ward — and Ward’s two daughters, ages 7 and 5. In court filings, attorneys for the church called the structure a “constant and very painful reminder.” “It’s a very somber day for us,” said Amber Holder, a church member who was a plaintiff in the lawsuit. Holder said the church had become a piece of history and that the scars on the building from that day, including bullet holes, were a powerful reminder of what happened. “Tearing it down, no good comes from that,” Holder said. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that some church members were wrongfully removed from the church roster before the vote was taken. The man who opened fire in 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 involving Kelley and his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended services at the church but was not present on the day of the shooting. Last month, demolition began on the three-story building where 17 people died in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where racist mass shootings happened, both reopened. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/crews-begin-demolishing-texas-church-gunman-killed-dozen-112779134