By Natalie Venegas
Weekend Reporter
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Demolition began on Monday at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, the site of the deadliest church shooting in U.S. history, according to the Associated Press (AP).
In November 2017, 26 worshippers were tragically killed in a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church when shooter Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire. Authorities have stated that the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute involving Kelley, who later died after a self-inflicted gunshot, 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 then completed for the congregation. However, debates remained over what to do with the other site that served as a reminder of the deadly day.
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According to the AP, demolition crews moved in on the site, bringing down the walls of the small sanctuary.
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The building's destruction signaled the end of the prolonged community debate over the fate of the site. For nearly six years, the church's members and the wider community grappled with whether to preserve the building as a memorial or to move on by demolishing it.
In 2021, First Baptist members voted to tear down the structure, despite opposition from some families of the victims who sought to preserve the site.
The debate eventually went to court, and a Texas judge this summer temporarily halted the demolition with a restraining order after responding to a request from those opposing the teardown.
Another judge denied extending the order last month, paving the way for the demolition to proceed as the church's attorneys argued in court filings that the building had become "a constant and very painful reminder" of the tragedy, the AP reported.
The debate over what to do with the sites of mass shootings is part of a larger struggle communities across the nation continue to face after lives have been lost.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to reducing gun violence in the U.S., over 19,000 people were shot and killed or wounded in the United States in a mass shooting in the eight years between 2015 and 2022.
Newsweek reached out to Everytown via email on Monday for comment.
In Parkland, Florida, demolition began last month on the building where 17 people were killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
The Parkland demolition came after a strong call was made by former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students in 2022 for the school to be torn down after the jury recommended that Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, be sentenced to life in prison.
Similarly, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut was torn down and rebuilt after the 2012 shooting that claimed 26 lives.
In addition, on May 24, 2022, a shooter 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 going back to that campus in any form or fashion. There will be no school personnel on that campus as we move forward," Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Superintendent Hal Harrell 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'll have some community input to determine what that looks like for our community."
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