banned him from buying the gun which he did legally over the course of four years? reporter: we don t know specifically why. just there was a failure somewhere in place there that allowed him to buy that weaponry. what we know is more about kelly s back ground. devin kelly was a member of the air force. lived in the base in new mexico with his life and infant stepson from 2010 until 2014. in 2012 court marshalled for a violent incident. the reporting is he assaulted his wife and fractured his infant stepson s skull during this violent incident. that led to a court marshal and military prison time for a year stemming from that incident. the question as you mentioned all day was how in the world was this guy able to buy several guns from 2014 to 2017 believed to use the piece of weaponry in the shooting that officials
officials say a good samaritan unrelented continued to pursue the gunman. short time later, as law enforcement responded, that suspect right at the wilson guadeloupe county line ran off the roadway and crashed out. find deceased in his vehicle. at that time, we don t know we don t know if it was self infligted gunshot wound or shot by local resident who engaged him in gunfire. multiple weapons in the suspects vehicle. been identified as 26-year-old. all we know about him at this point comes from air force spoke woman. court marshalled on 2012 on two charges of assaulting spouse and child. confined for a year. reduced in rank and given bad conduct discharge. not a lot of information there. the trick of that information coming in slowly. i mentioned earlier, my colleague on the ground in
officials are trying to figure out why 26-year-old devin kelley opened fire on a baptist church here. we ve learned kelley s former in-laws had attended the church but were not there yesterday. we know kelly had been a member of the u.s. air force but was court marshalled in 2012 and given a bad conduct discharge. nbc has learned that that bad conduct discharge should have disqualified him from buying a gun. but it didn t for some reason. we also know that kelly was in tactical gear at the time of the attack and had multiple weapons in his car. so far federal officials say there is no obvious link to any organized terror group, stephanie. let s talk more about the gunman s motive and bring in msnbc terrorism analyst, malcolm nance. and jim cavanaugh, a retired special a gent in charge for the atf. jim, let s start with you. what are the atf agents on the scene looking for? i mean, the focus of this
conduct discharge in 2014. he d been court marshalled in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child. those specific charges, not just the bad conduct mischarge, but the domestic assault should have disqualified him from being able to get a gun. we ve been covering this all night. i want to bring in my colleague now. you just have spoken to the sheriff so you got the latest information. what do we know? we know also that this church, ali, they usually record videos that were later posted to youtube. they were able to get their hands on the video that was shot yesterday, and they said that it wasn t it didn t reveal much. it was too short a video. he did say the devastating numbers that you cited, 12 to 14 childrenceased in this shooting. he also confirmed the link with the parents and the estranged wife. they had been to this church before, but they were not local. they were not really known to the members of this community.
devin patrick kelley, the suspected gunman, who arrived at the first baptist church ready for war. dressed in all black, tactical type gear, and was wearing a ballistic vest. overnight, authorities were on kelley s property nearby. neighbors say they ve often heard gunshots and explosions in the past. deputies have not yet entered his home. the 26-year-old is a former air force member. the relevant here is he was court marshalled in 2012 for assaulting his spouse and a child. also given a one-year prison sentence. he was reduced in rank and released from the military with a bad conduct mischarge. he has no apparent links to terrori terrorism. police think they have a better idea of how the suspect died. there was some gunfire exchanged i think on the roadway, also. then he wrecked out.