Demolition work began on Monday at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, the site of the worst church shooting in U.S. history, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
In November 2017, 26 worshipers were tragically killed in a mass shooting at First Baptist Church when gunman Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire. Authorities said the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute between Kelley, who later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his mother-in-law, who occasionally attended services at the church but was not present during the massacre.
A year and a half after the shooting, a new church was completed for the community, but debates continued about what to do with the other site that served as a memorial to the deadly day.
According to AP, demolition crews arrived on site and tore down the walls of the small sanctuary.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
The destruction of the building marked the end of a long-running debate in the community about the fate of the site. For almost six years, church members and the wider community had wrestled with whether the building should be preserved as a monument or demolished.
In 2021, members of the First Baptist Church voted to demolish the building, despite opposition from some of the victims’ families who called for the site to be preserved.
The dispute eventually went to court, and a Texas judge halted the demolition with a temporary restraining order this summer after granting a request from anti-demolition protesters.
Another judge last month refused to extend the injunction, clearing the way for demolition, while the church’s lawyers argued in court filings that the building had become a “permanent and very painful reminder” of the tragedy, AP reported.
The debate over what to do with the sites of mass shootings is part of a larger conflict that communities across the country continue to face in the wake of the loss of life.
According to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, nonpartisan organization working to reduce gun violence in the United States, more than 19,000 people were shot or injured in mass shootings in the United States in the eight years between 2015 and 2022.
Newsweek Everytown emailed him for comment on Monday.
In Parkland, Florida, demolition began last month on the building where 17 people were killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
The demolition of Parkland came after former students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School strongly called for the school to be demolished in 2022 after a jury recommended that shooter Nikolas Cruz be sentenced to life in prison.
Similarly, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was demolished and rebuilt after the 2012 shooting that left 26 people dead.
In addition, on May 24, 2022, a gunman killed 21 people at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Shortly after the shooting, many local officials and parents called for the school to be destroyed.
“Robb Elementary, we will not be returning to that campus in any form or fashion. There will be no school personnel on that campus going forward,” Hal Harrell, superintendent of the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, said in June. “As far as the future of that site, there are discussions about what that will look like. As we move forward as a community, we will seek some community input to determine what that will look like for our community.”
