Officials broke Pentagon rules by failing to add Devin Patrick Kelley’s 2012 domestic violence conviction and 2014 bad-conduct discharge to the federal database used to conduct background checks for potential gun buyers.
Kelley, 26, bought the first of four weapons in 2014 and carried three of them, a Ruger AR-15 and two handguns, in Sunday’s attack on a small church outside San Antonio that was the worst ever mass shooting in Texas history.
The dead ranged from 18 months to 77 years old and included several members of the same families who had attended a service at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.
After fleeing the church, Kelley, who was dressed in black, was pursued in a 90mph chase by two men later hailed by authorities as “two good Samaritans”.
Stephen Willeford, a 55-year-old former National Rifle Association instructor, heard the shooting at home and grabbed his rifle before running barefoot and jumping in a stranger’s pickup truck that was stopped at a junction.
The driver, Johnnie Langendorff, chased Kelley while the pair reported their movements to police before the attacker’s car collided with a road sign and flipped into a ditch.
Police arrived a few minutes later with Kelley engaged in a stand-off, during which it is understood he took his own life.
Officials said he suffered three gunshot wounds; to the leg, torso and the self-inflicted shot to the head.
“I didn’t want this and I want the focus to be on my friends,” Willeford later told the Dallas Morning News. “I have friends in that church. I was terrified while this was going on.”
Langendorff said: “I did what I did because it was the right thing to do.”