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 killed more than two dozen worshippers in 2017 in what remains the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history.

Following the shooting at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, the church turned the sanctuary where the attack took place into a memorial. Members of First Baptist then voted in 2021 to tear down the building but church leaders have not publicly said when it would be razed.

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

State District Judge Jennifer Dillingham earlier this month granted a temporary restraining order sought by some families who wanted to stop the planned demolition. But on Monday, state District Judge Russell Wilson denied a request to extend that order, again raising the prospect that the church could soon be torn down.

Attorneys for the church said during the hearing in Floresville that the church was within its rights to demolish the memorial, the San Antonio Express-News reported. “This is a question of church governance on how the church is going to proceed with its own property,” church attorney Matthew Swantner said.

Sam Fugate II, an attorney for the church attendees who sought the restraining order, has said the goal of the lawsuit filed in May was to get a new vote on the fate of the building. In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that some church members were wrongfully removed from the church roster before it was taken.

Fugate told reporters after the hearing that without the temporary restraining order, they “no longer have an order preventing the church from being destroyed,” but they hope “the defendants will honor the suit and not take the church down while we deal with some of these issues.”

Some who visited the memorial this month after news spread of the impending demolishment said it was a place that brought solace. But the church said in a court filing last week that the structure was a “constant and very painful reminder" and that church members voted in 2021 to build an open-air memorial there. Authorities put the number of dead 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 on a voicemail at the church by The Associated Press was not immediately returned Monday and one of the attorneys for the church told 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 talking to the media.

Sandy Ward, a supporter of the plaintiffs' efforts, emerged optimistic from the hearing. Ward, who lost three family members in the shooting, told the Express-News: “As long as the building is still there, there’s 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 involving Kelley and his mother-in-law, who sometimes attended services at the church but was not present on the day of the shooting.

Communities across the U.S. have grappled with what should happen to the sites of mass shootings. 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. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, it was torn down and replaced.

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. In Colorado, Columbine High School still stands — though its library, where most of the victims were killed, was replaced.

In Texas, officials closed Robb Elementary in Uvalde after the 2022 shooting there and plan to demolish the school.