A man in California who fatally shot his three daughters and a chaperone while visiting them in a church, before killing himself, also had a history of abuse and restraining orders.
The shooter, 39-year-old David Fidel Mora-Rojas, had been the subject of a temporary restraining order that should have prevented him from access to a firearm. Mora was arrested five days before the incident in a county south of Sacramento.
“He was drunk, and while they were arresting him or trying to, he decided he wanted to fight and ended up with felony charges because he assaulted a CHP officer, causing injuries,” a spokesperson for the Merced County Sheriff’s Office told the Sacramento Bee.
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Mora had been arrested on Feb. 23, posted bail, and was released after spending a single night in jail, the spokesperson said.
More was subject to a temporary restraining order issued in April 2021 preventing him from owning a firearm, court documents revealed. The children’s mother had filed for the firearm restriction amid abuse concerns. The court imposed the five-year-order on May 19, which limited Mora to supervised visits with his daughters with a mutually-agreed-upon chaperone, court documents show.
Mora “is a very jealous person,” the woman wrote in her restraining order request. “He threatened to kill me if he ever caught me cheating.” He also reportedly claimed that the only reason he had not killed her was that “he would not know where to go with the children.”
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“She did everything right,” Faith Whitmore, the Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center CEO, told the Sacramento Bee. “She got a restraining order; she asked for supervised visits so her children would be safe and supervised in the presence of this person she was afraid of. And still, he did what he did. I don’t think there’s anything else she could have done.”
“Our church body is devastated and heartbroken by this senseless tragedy, and we ask for continued prayer for the victims, their family, and our faith community as we grapple with this unexpected loss and trust the Lord for His strength in our grief,” The Church in Sacramento said in a statement.
