HOUSTON — The person who opened fire Sunday in one of the country’s largest megachurches — using an AR-15 adorned with the word “Palestine” — was subject to an emergency detention order in 2016 due to mental health issues and was caught up in a fraught dispute with her ex-husband and his family, officials said Monday.
Genesse Moreno, 36, pulled up outside Lakewood Church about 2 p.m., walked inside with her 7-year-old son just before the start of a Spanish-language service and started shooting. The gunfire set off a panic in the cavernous building, with two off-duty officers confronting Moreno, who was wearing a trench coat, according to police and a search warrant executed early Monday.
In the ensuing moments, officials said, the boy was shot in the head and critically injured, and a male church employee was shot in the hip. Moreno was pronounced dead at the scene by the fire department.
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Local and federal law enforcement officials, speaking at a news conference, said they believe Moreno acted alone. They said that a search of her home in suburban Conroe, Tex., about 50 miles north of Houston, had found “some antisemitic writings” that investigators will be “delving into.”
“We believe there was a familial dispute that has taken place through her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family, who are Jewish. That may be where some of this stems from,” said Christopher Hassig, commander of the Houston Police Department’s homicide special investigations unit.
Moreno was identified via a driver’s license, said officials, who noted that she had multiple aliases, including “Jeffrey Escalante,” and used male and female pronouns.
She had also brought a .22-caliber rifle to the church but did not fire it, officials said. The car she drove there is being processed for evidence.
At the time of the shooting, Moreno had a backpack, yellow rope and “substances consistent with the manufacture of explosive devices, which appeared to be a detonation cord,” according to police and the warrant. Investigators searched Moreno’s house — in Conroe’s Sterling Place subdivision — for evidence of a bomb hoax, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and/or possession of prohibited weapons, the warrant said.
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Moreno purchased the AR-15 rifle in December, and officials were still tracing it and trying to determine how she purchased both guns.
Share this articleShareThe injured child remained hospitalized in critical condition on Monday, “fighting for his life,” according to Police Chief Troy Finner. The other victim has been released from the hospital.
Though a post on Moreno’s Instagram indicated that she had once donated to Lakewood, the chief said it wasn’t clear why the shooter targeted the church or if she had any real connection to it. “I can’t speculate,” he said. “It could be any place of worship. Bad people or individuals suffering from mental illness, we all need to look out for.”
Of the two off-duty officers who immediately responded, Adrian Herrera is employed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Christopher Moreno (no relation to the shooter) by the Houston police force. The latter was working security for the church and wearing a body camera; investigators are now reviewing footage from that as well as from church security cameras.
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Finner said Moreno’s relatives were cooperating with the investigation. He said it wasn’t clear who shot the 7-year-old.
Moreno’s social media indicated that she worked in real estate. She had been convicted or pleaded guilty in the Houston area to misdemeanor assault, fraud and drug charges, records show.
At the briefing, Finner and the FBI special agent in charge were asked how Moreno was able to obtain guns when records show that a weapon was taken away from her in 2022 and that the FBI had questioned her attempt to purchase a weapon last year. Generally, Texas has few restrictions on gun purchases, with no firearm sales registry, no required waiting period to buy a gun and no red-flag law guarding against mentally ill or violent people having weapons.
“That’s part of the investigation,” Finner said. “That’s the challenges that we have. That’s what law enforcement talk about all the time. We need to make sure everything is tight. We are not people standing up here against Second Amendment rights, but [against] people who are suffering from mental illness, criminals. We’re looking at that.”
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Lakewood Church, the home of Joel Osteen’s global ministry, is a former basketball arena with nearly 45,000 worshipers weekly. The church was not holding in-person services Monday, a staff member said.
Carl Chinn, founder of Faith Based Security Network, a national nonprofit of faith-based groups that shares security information — and includes Lakewood — said Monday that the two men who stopped the shooter were part of the church’s intentional security program.
Intentional programs at faith-based organizations — especially at large churches, such as Lakewood — usually involve members who are in law enforcement, Chinn said. The average member would probably have been informed not to jump up and get involved in an incident, so that multiple people aren’t firing outside a coordinated plan, he noted.
correction
An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the injured child was 5 years old, based on initial information from law enforcement. Officials later identified him as a 7-year-old. The article has been corrected.
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