Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Monday he doesn’t consider the gunman who opened fire on parishioners at a church in Texas to be a veteran and said instead he was an “evil person.” The suspected gunman, 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley, served in the U.S. Air Force from 2010 to 2014. He received a bad conduct discharge after he was court-martialed in 2012 for assault on his wife and their child, and served a year behind bars.
“This is a very sad situation and a tragedy not only for the families and the town in Texas but really for the country. But in my opinion, I really do not consider him a veteran,” Shulkin said during an event at the National Press Club. “That would give him much more respect than he deserves. He is a criminal, and I think that he was convicted, and with a dishonorable discharge does not deserve to have the same title as the men and women who have served this country and have honorably been discharged.”
Despite Shulkin’s comments, Kelley was not dishonorably discharged and instead received a bad conduct discharge.
Police believe Kelley killed 26 and wounded 20 others when he opened fire on the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, during a church service Sunday. The victims range in age from 18 months to 77 years.
Under a 1997 law called the Lautenberg Amendment, anyone convicted of domestic violence is prohibited from accessing firearms. But federal authorities are still working to determine whether Kelley’s conviction in 2012 and bad conduct discharge in 2014 were enough to prohibit him from having firearms. Either way, Kelley did not have a permit to carry at the time of the shooting.
Law enforcement officials said Monday that Kelley purchased four guns — two in Colorado and two in Texas — from 2014 to 2017, and said he used a Ruger AR-556 in the attack. Police also found two handguns in Kelley’s vehicle.
In the wake of the shooting Sunday, President Trump said it was a “mental health problem at the highest level,” instead of a “guns situation.”
Shulkin was asked about the benefits, such as access to mental health services, available to veterans depending on their military discharge, and said there’s a difference between service members who receive an other-than-honorable discharge and those that receive a dishonorable discharge. The VA secretary said the VA expanded emergency mental health services to those with other-than-honorable discharges.
However, Shulkin said Kelley wouldn’t have been eligible for benefits from the VA.
“Those with bad conduct or discharge, bad discharges such as those gentlemen, have violated the law, have violated our morals and ethics, and I do not believe deserve the types of services and benefits, and the VA would not be providing those benefits,” he said. “This is not a person who’s ever been treated in the VA system and would not be eligible for those benefits.”
