Lakewood Church shooting: Spotlight on Texas gun laws after Houston megachurch attack
A motive for the shooting at the Houston megachurch remains unknown
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The spotlight is on Texas gun laws after a woman with a history of mental illness and a criminal record was able to legally purchase a gun and walk into Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston.
Genesse Moreno, 36, opened fire at the church sparking a gunfight with two off-duty cops that left her son fighting for his life in hospital. He remains in critical condition.
In the days since, information has emerged about Moreno’s mental health and criminal history – raising questions around whether something could have been done to have prevented the shooting.
Police said she had legally purchased the AR-15 rifle in December 2023 — despite the fact that court records show that in 2022, she was arrested for a weapons misdemeanour charge.
Now all eyes are turning to Texas’ lax gun laws – particularly the state’s absence of red flag laws.
Red flag laws — which allow for police to intervene if someone shows signs that they are a danger to themselves or others. A court can take away their guns or prevent them from buying one.
The issue is, in Texas, there is no red flag law.
Neighbours claim Moreno intimidated them with Nazi salutes
Genesse Moreno’s neighbours say that she intimidated them with guns and made Nazi salutes for several years before the shooting, my colleague Andrea Cavallier reports.
Residents in Conroe – a north Houston suburb – told local reports that Moreno was often seen with multiple guns, harassing and threatening them and making them fearful in their own neighbourhood.
“Her way of intimidation was to bring the gun cases in and out, crossbows. She’d come out, have her gun cases, do heil Hitler, flip you off, call you the b-word, or something. It was something every day,” one neighbour told KPRC, a Houston TV news station.
Another neighbour said Moreno had scrawled swastikas on her property and taunted her and her grandchildren multiple times. Another claimed she tried to run them over.
“I’ve been through hell. I have reported this, reported this and its gone on deaf ears,” said one neighbour, who gave her name as Jill. “I’ve had psychological officers out here that won’t answer their door. They won’t do anything. [They say,] ‘until she hurts you there is nothing we can do’.”
Video shows Lakewood congregation running for cover
We now have video from within the megachurch while the attack was unfolding.
The video doesn’t show any direct view of the shooting, though some viewers may still find it disturbing.
Shooter's son had severe disabilities
Genesse Moreno’s son has developmental and physical disabilities and was not enrolled in public school, The Houston Chronicle now reports.
According to the newspaper, Moreno’s former mother-in-law Walli Carranza filed documents in a lawsuit against Moreno saying that her son was born prematurely and had special needs.
“[The child] is not a neurotypical five and a half-year-old child. He is nonverbal, tube-fed and not toilet trained,” Ms Carranza wrote.
The boy’s father Enrique Carranza also testified that his son had “physical and developmental lags”, and was not speaking at the age of four.
Conroe school officials said that the child was not enrolled in public school.
'Why she went to Lakewood, I have no idea'
Moreno’s former mother in law has said she has “no idea” why Moreno chose Lakewood Church as her target.
In an interview with ABC 13, Wallia Carranza said the woman who opened fire in the church had changed enormously from the person who son married back in 2016.
“Why she went to Lakewood, I have no idea. They’re Protestants,” said Ms Carranza. “The anti-Semitic part says she would have went to a synagogue.”
Moreno had 'repeatedly threatened family'
In a separate interview with The Christian Post, Walli Carranza said that Moreno had threatened many of her family members due to her schizophrenia.
“The fact that she wasn’t allowed to kill anyone else was a great blessing,” said Ms Carranza, who is the lead rabbi at a progressive Jewish congregation in France, according to her LinkedIn page.
“She had a particular kind of schizophrenia that caused her to become violent. She threatened her husband’s life. She threatened mine. She threatened to kill her own son and we still couldn’t get intervention.”
Ex-husband was 'reticent to file charges' for fear of deportation
Despite accusing her of domestic abuse, Moreno's ex-husband was reluctant to file criminal charges against her for fear that she would be deported, according to court documents seen by ABC News.
In an affidavit filed in 2020 as part of a custody battle, Walli Carranza reportedly said that her son Enrique Carranza was "reticent to file the criminal charges against his wife, now his former wife because, as she is not a US citizen."
Ms Carranza continued: "As she already has had criminal convictions, she would likely be deported if convicted of the third degree felony that stems from filing a fraudulent birth certificate.
"He told detectives this is not what he wants for the woman he loved and married and the mother of his child. He wants her to live, he told police, where she can get quality mental healthcare.
"He doesn’t hate her; he hates her mental illness and her refusal to treat it."
Mr Carranza had accused Moreno of hitting him with keys and cans of beans, attacking him out of impatience with a job interview process, and pointing a loaded gun at him.
Moreno, going by the name Jeffrey Moreno-Carranza, responded by accusing Mr Carranza of physically assaulting her and of leaving the care of their son entirely to her.
Mr Carranza was previously convicted of attempting to sexually assault two children, aged 12 and 13, according to Texas's sex offender registry.
Ted Cruz shares debunked claim that Moreno was transgender
Conservative pundits, activists, and politicians have continued to spread the unfounded claim that Moreno was a transgender woman, even after it was kiboshed by police.
The Houston Police department said in a press conference on Monday afternoon that although Moreno had sometimes gone by the alias "Jeffrey Escalante", she appeared to have always "identified as female".
There is also no mention of a trans identity in Moreno's divorce documents, and and police have confirmed that she was the biological mother of her son.
But that did not stop the likes of conservative crusader Chris Rufo, anti-LGBT+ activist Chaya Raichik, Donald Trump Jr, and even Texas senator Ted Cruz from latching onto the idea.
"Per capita, violent trans extremists have to have become the most violent group of people anywhere in the world," said Don Jr on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday morning.
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Ms Raichik, who runs the Libs of TikTok account on X, has continued to call Moreno a "trans terrorist", without offering any evidence, even as she posted clips of other portions of Monday's press conference.
On Tuesday afternoon, nearly 12 hours after that conference, Mr Cruz shared one of Ms Raichik's posts with an emoji of a man covering his face with one hand.
The claim appears to have originated from the left-leaning broadcaster MSNBC, which claimed on Monday morning before the press conference that Moreno was "a Hispanic transgender woman".
Fox News followed that up with a headline claiming that Moreno "identified as [a] transgender woman". Both outlets have now nixed that claim.
No new details yet, say Houston police
We just got a new statement from the Houston Police Department, although it does not offer any new details.
"We continue to receive inquiries for more details and specifics in the investigation since yesterday's news briefing," the department said.
"We understand the desire to receive more information in case. At this time, no other details are being released as this complex investigation is ongoing and still in its early stages."
Conservatives are increasingly blaming mass shootings on trans people
Conservatives' embrace of debunked claims about Moreno being transgender is part of a gathering effort to blame LGBT+ people for gun violence in America.
Seizing on a number of recent shootings in which the alleged perpetrators appeared to be trans or non-binary, right-wing activists and influencers have increasingly begun to claim that trans people are a uniquely violent community.
"The modern trans movement is radicalising activists into terrorists," wrote Benny Johnson, a conservative YouTuber previously fired from BuzzFeed for plagiarism, after the 2023 Nashville shooting.
"Per capita, is there a more violent group of people anywhere in the world than radicalised trans activists?" wrote Donald Trump Jr after the Iowa high school shooting last month.
"This is happening a lot. Something is deeply wrong," said Elon Musk, the richest person in the world and the owner of X, formerly Twitter, who has become increasingly critical of trans rights since his own child transitioned.
Some right-wingers, including Republican congressman Paul Gosar, also falsely blamed a random trans woman living in Georgia for the 2022 Uvalde shooting.
But what data we have does not support the idea that trans people commit more mass shootings than others, according to a Reuters analysis last year.
There have been four recent shootings where there was evidence that a perpetrator was transgender or considering transition: in Aberdeen, Maryland in 2018; in Denver, Colorado in 2019; in Nashville, Tennessee in 2023; and in Iowa in January 2024.
One further example often touted by conservatives – the 2022 Colorado Springs shooting at an LGBT+ nightclub – is disputed. Although the shooter has said they identify as non-binary, prosecutors have said there is "zero evidence" that they did so before the shooting, and that they exhibited "extreme hatred" for LGBT+ people".
Meanwhile, the Gun Violence Archive lists more than 4,400 mass shootings in the US since 2013, some of which have more than one perpetrator. Of those, less than ten were known to be transgender as of last March, representing 0.11 per cent of the whole.
A US Secret Service analysis of 173 mass casualty attacks gave a higher estimate, saying that 2 per cent of perpetrators had been trans men. By contrast, around 96 per cent were cisgender (or non-trans) men.
The number of trans people in the US is uncertain, with estimates commonly clustering around 0.5 to 0.6 per cent.
What we know about Moreno's criminal past
My colleague Kelly Rissman has been digging through Moreno's lengthy history of interactions with the law, which dates back nearly two decades before the shooting.
In 2009, she was arrested for assault causing bodily injury, and a year later she was arrested for forgery relating to a counterfeit $100 bill.
Meanwhile, the rifle she used to commit the shooting was legally purchased in December 2023 – even though she had been arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon earlier that same year.
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