Sutherland Springs church shooting

On the morning of November 5, 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley drove to the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, during Sunday service. Around 11:20 a.m., he exited his vehicle wearing tactical gear and a skull-patterned face mask, armed with a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle. He killed two people outside the building before entering the sanctuary, where he shouted at worshippers and fired up and down the aisle. Investigators recovered 15 empty 30-round magazines and estimated that Kelley fired approximately 450 rounds over about 11 minutes. The attack was captured on a camera set up to record services.

Local resident Stephen Willeford, a former firearms instructor, confronted Kelley with his own rifle and shot him twice, in the leg and torso. Kelley fled in his vehicle; Willeford and another resident, Johnnie Langendorff, pursued him at high speed while relaying the route to police. During the chase, Kelley called his wife and parents, said he had "shot up the Sutherland Springs church," and expressed remorse. He lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a field. Police found him dead of three gunshot wounds, including a self-inflicted head wound.

Twenty-six people were killed, including ten women, seven men, six girls, two boys, and an unborn child; 22 others were injured. Victims included the 14-year-old daughter of the church's pastor and visiting pastor Bryan Holcombe, who died along with eight family members. One survivor, Kris Workman, was shot twice and left paralyzed. The Texas Rangers led the investigation with the FBI and ATF, and found no indication anyone other than Kelley was involved; investigators initially attributed the attack to a dispute involving Kelley's mother-in-law.

Kelley had a 2012 general court-martial conviction for domestic assault against his first wife and stepson while serving in the U.S. Air Force, a conviction that under federal law should have barred him from purchasing firearms. The Air Force failed to report the conviction to the National Crime Information Center, allowing Kelley to pass background checks and legally purchase the weapons used in the attack. This failure led Congress to pass the Fix NICS Act, signed into law in March 2018, to address gaps in background-check reporting.

In 2018, families of two victims sued the U.S. Air Force and Department of Defense for negligence. In 2021, a federal judge ruled the government was largely responsible for the shooting and later awarded more than $230 million in damages to survivors and victims' families.

The shooting also drew a wave of conspiracy theories and false claims about Kelley's motives and identity, including harassment of victims' families by individuals who denied the massacre occurred; two such individuals were later arrested after confronting the church's pastor. The former church building was preserved as a memorial before being demolished in 2024 following a legal dispute among victims' families over its fate.