"The Lakewood Church shooter had encounters with more than 50 officers. Nobody stopped her."

Storytelling CATEGORY — SHOWCASE Silver winner

Houston Chronicle
Contributors: Caroline Ghisolfi, Amelia Winger, Matt DeGrood

05/06/2024

This Houston Chronicle package shows how institutional blind spots in Texas’ law enforcement, family court and social welfare systems let years of textbook “active shooter” warnings go unheeded, clearing the path for a 36-year-old woman to open fire on a Houston megachurch in February 2024. The attack left the shooter dead and her 7-year-old son severely impaired.

Reporters collected dozens of recorded 911 calls and hundreds of pages of law enforcement reports and court filings to build a first-of-its-kind database of every interaction that Genesse Moreno, the shooter, had with government authorities in the decade leading up to the deadly attack. A monthslong analysis – informed by interviews with Moreno’s family members, friends and neighbors, government officials, and criminal justice, mental health and child welfare law experts – pinpoints more than 100 missed opportunities where authorities could have intervened.

The project’s immersive presentation invites readers to delve into the overwhelming volume of evidence that police, social workers and judges missed or overlooked. It chronicles Moreno’s tumultuous divorce and custody battle over her medically-fragile young child, a deepening spiral of mental illness and a pattern of erratic behavior that quickly escalated into aggression.

Audiences watch as grips of panic and paranoia give way to blinding rage in videos Moreno posted to social media. They hear her sobbing voice pleading for help on the phone with 911 operators. As Feb. 11– the day of the attack–approaches, they witness her chilling resolve to act on a decade’s worth of perceived injustices and attack a religious site. An interactive timeline anchors the narrative, illustrating how seemingly isolated events compounded into tragedy.

Criminal justice, mental health and child welfare law experts who reviewed the Chronicle’s findings said the shooting was preventable.

MAIN LINK to content online

Additional links to content online:
Inside the Houston Chronicle’s investigation into the Lakewood Church shooter
6 takeaways from the Chronicle's investigation of the Lakewood Church shooting

Submitted by Caroline Ghisolfi.