Family Who Lost Eight Members in Sutherland Springs Shooting Targets Government With Notice of Claim Allegations

November 27, 2017 San Antonio, Tx.:  Joe “Papa Joe” Holcombe and his wife Claryce lost their son and eight other family members in the tragedy that occurred earlier this month in the massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas.  The Holcombe family is in search of answers to many questions about why the Air Force failed to provide key information to the FBI that should have prevented Devin Patrick Kelley from purchasing firearms. 

Papa Joe and Claryce are committed to making sure no other family has to suffer such a devastating preventable loss. The family is now filing a federal claim form with U.S. Government to determine negligence. 

“Under a 1996 law preventing spouse and child abusers from possessing firearms, the service’s Office of Special Investigations should have entered that conviction into an FBI database,” says the family’s attorney Rob Ammons.”The office didn’t, the Air Force has admitted. What’s more, the acts Kelley pleaded guilty to — breaking his baby stepson’s skull and hitting and kicking his then-wife — were punishable by imprisonment of more than a year. That qualifies them as felonies, which must be entered into the database.”

 Devin Kelley purchased a Ruger AR-566 rifle at an Academy Sports & Outdoors in San Antonio which he used in the mass killing.  Reports indicate the store ran a background check on him twice.  He passed both of them.

 The family has retained the Ammons Law Firm in Houston, Texas to assist them in their search for answers about the omissions that contributed to this tragedy.  

Rob Ammons is Board Certified in Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization, in addition to being Board Certified in Civil Law by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Rob Ammons’ law practice, The Ammons Law Firm, is located in Houston, Texas.