Posted on 05/08/2023 2:51:11 PM PDT by NoLibZone
We were not aware of any mental health issues related to Mr. Garcia nor did the State of Texas report any issues when conducting a background check prior to issuing him a security license...'
After being reportedly kicked out of the U.S. Army in 2008 “due to mental health concerns,” suspected Allen, Texas, mass shooter Mauricio Garcia embarked on a career as a state-licensed security guard.
Garcia would have needed a background check from Texas before becoming a licensed guard. But according to one of the security firms Garcia worked for, the state never reported his purported mental-health issues when conducting the background check.
Headline USA learned this while reaching out to the firms Garcia reportedly worked for, including Ruiz Protective Service—a company founded by former FBI agent Hector Ruiz.
Ruiz Protective provided the following information in an email: “Based on the information available concerning the incident at the Allen mall, we believe that the Mauricio Garcia who worked for Ruiz Protective Service, Inc. from November 2015 to June 2016 is the same person involved in the shooting. This individual was terminated in 2016 and was not employed by Ruiz Protective Service, Inc. after that time.
“We were not aware of any mental health issues related to Mr. Garcia nor did the State of Texas report any issues when conducting a background check prior to issuing him a security license,” said the Ruiz Protective vice president, Rob Minnis.
Other companies Garcia worked for—Statewide Patrol and Verified Response Security & Investigations—have not responded to Headline USA questions about whether they were aware of the shooter’s reported mental health problems.
The Texas Department of Public Safety has yet to respond about whether the state’s background check spotted Garcia’s mental health problems.
According to the Texas Online Private Security database, Garcia underwent training after receiving his license, including in “firearms proficiency”—training that presumably wouldn’t have occurred if the state’s background check flagged his mental health problems.
Garcia’s license expired in April 2020, according to the database.
Saturday’s mass shooting killed eight individuals and left seven others critically injured. Garcia was killed by an officer at a parking lot of a Texas mall.
Rather than focus on Garcia’s mental health, most media outlets have focused on his purported ideology.
According to the Washington Post, investigators at the scene found a sign on the man’s chest that said “RWDS,” an acronym for Right Wing Death Squad.
Media efforts to frame the mass shooting as a right-wing attack under dubious circumstances drew strong backlash on Twitter, with many users pointing to the fact that it was, at the very least, premature.
This is just like the church shooter in Texas, a few years ago.
The military didn’t provide this information for the state to use.
They cleaned that up, but older approvals all lacked this evidence.
No need for new laws just because the existing ones aren’t enforced.
Big money lawsuit stemmed from that Air Force neglect to enter the data.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/us/air-force-sutherland-springs-shooting-settlement.html
“But according to one of the security firms Garcia worked for, the state never reported his purported mental-health issues when conducting the background check.”
How many times do we hear of this happening? Quite often.
Background checks do nothing to confirm that a buyer will not go on a killing spree. They are incomplete as mental issues are often not reported.
Scoop. Texas does not have a background check. The federal government does
I thought that stupid schmuck, part Army officer/part Cop, the first first responder to respond first at the mall and is now a hero, said that mental health didn’t play any part in these murders. It was an “automatic” weapon that killed those people. His drugstore cowboy hat is proof that he can’tr be wrong.
The US military kicked him out for being a nutcase. The responsibility falls back to the federal government who should’ve reported him, and who did the background check. But nice try to pawn it off on the state.
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“New Laws are always a good idea until the first time someone has to enforce them?” - Unknown
More and more we see that the big fail is with the background check system.
That may be what legislators need to address, rather than passing more laws.
Yes, I know it is a Russian site
This dude was pretty messed up. Click on a comment and then continue to the right to get to his texts and comments.
He was mental and an incel
My assumption is that the US Army did not report the situation to the NICS system. But how do we KNOW the killer was even dismissed from the Army for mental problems (where did the media get this info?). Or whether the facts known in 2008 SHOULD have been discovered in his Texas background check? Seems obvious that mental illness needs to be reported and tracked vis a vis firearms acquisition and possession. The government itself seems always to be the weak link.
But does the Army make the mental health issues of discharged soldiers available to state agencies even for background checks?
This is the problem with background checks, they’re working from an incomplete database, and they don’t follow up on these. The military should be reporting people who are release for mental issues, if they’re not fit to serve in the military mentally, probably not fit to have a firearm in their possession.
Never mind all the finger pointing. Just arm yourself.
This reminds me of the Ecole Polytechnique shooting in Montreal in December 1989. The perpetrator (who killed 14 women engineering students before turning his Ruger Mini 14 sporting rifle on himself) was granted a Firearms Acquisition Certificate (these had been required under Canadian law since 1979 for the legal purchases of rifles, shotguns, and handguns) by a Montreal police firearms officer who failed to conduct the background check on him that would have likely revealed that he had been a drifter who could not stay in school or hold down a job for any length of time. Also that he was turned down by the Canadian military’s junior cadet program for mentally erratic and unstable behaviour and that in turn was the product of having grown up in a home environment where his Algerian Muslim father beat up on him and his sister and mother frequently before the mother obtained a divorce when the perpetrator was about eleven or twelve years old.
You can have all the waiting periods and licensing schemes for legal firearms acquisitions in the world, but they are only as good as the people who are responsible for administering and enforcing them.
Right. NCIS is a FedGov database.
I’m sure the guy selling guns out of his car trunk does a background check.
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