The Houston Police Department confirmed Monday that the woman who opened fire at Lakewood Church in Houston had a documented “mental health history” and her son was the child injured in the shooting. Authorities also obtained “anti-Semitic writing” during their investigation into the shooting.
On Sunday afternoon, 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno* walked into Lakewood Church in Houston with a long gun and a young child and opened fire before being shot dead by law enforcement at the scene. During a press conference Monday afternoon, Houston PD Commander Chris Hassig said that Moreno “was put under an emergency detention order” in 2016 and “has a mental health history that is documented through us and through interviews with family members.”
The commander added that authorities recovered “anti-Semitic writing” and they believe there was “a familial dispute that has taken place between her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family.”
Houston PD Chief Troy Finner said Moreno was the biological mother of a 7-year-old child who was shot during an exchange of gunfire between Moreno and two off-duty law enforcement officers. Finner added that the child is “fighting for his life” in critical condition, and a 57-year-old man who was also shot has since been released from the hospital.
Moreno, a woman, previously identified as Jeffrey Escalante, according to Texas Department of Public Safety records. She had a criminal history extending back nearly two decades to 2005 that included arrests for failure to stop and give information, assault of a public servant, assault causing bodily injury, forgery, possession of marijuana, theft, evading arrest, and unlawful carrying of a weapon.
🚨 BREAKING: Lakewood Church shooter identified as a transgender, legal name Genesse Moreno but went by the name “Jeffrey.” 🚨 pic.twitter.com/0gmgybgOLC
— Sara Gonzales (@SaraGonzalesTX) February 12, 2024
Moreno opened fire in Joel Osteen’s mega-church, using an AR-15 with “Palestine” written on it, and authorities believe she acted as a “lone wolf” and was “not a part of a larger group.”
The shooting at Lakewood Church comes amid growing concern about recent mass shootings carried out by trans-identifying and “non-binary” shooters. One of the most prominent cases occurred last year when a woman who identified as a man entered a Christian school in Nashville and murdered three children and three adults before she was killed by responding police officers.
*Reports on mass shootings typically do not name the shooter under Daily Wire policy, but in this case, the shooter’s name is a vital part of law enforcement records and thus necessary to the clear reporting of this story.