HOUSTON (AP) — The former mother-in-law of the woman who opened fire at a Houston megachurch tried for years to alert authorities and others, including church staff, about her ex-daughter-in-law’s mental health struggles, she said Wednesday. But Walli Carranza said nothing came of her actions.
Carranza said she believes systemic failures as well as lax gun laws ultimately led to Sunday’s shooting at celebrity pastor Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church in which Genesse Moreno entered the church with her 7-year-old son and opened fire in a hallway. Two people were wounded in the shooting, including Moreno’s son, who was shot in the head. Moreno was gunned down by security officers she exchanged gunfire with.
“You can’t put responsibility on the mind, when the mind was so very ill. A healthy mother would never bring her child to a situation like this. That’s not mental health. So sometimes we don’t have to find a guilty party or place blame. We can just say there are systems that failed,” Carranza told The Associated Press in an interview.