‘Here we are again’: Neighbors say Joel Osteen megachurch shooter should have been ‘handled years ago’

Neighbors of the Joel Osteen church shooter, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, claimed that they had expressed concerns about Moreno to law enforcement after being threatened and harassed, according to NBC News.

The Houston Police Department announced Monday that the shooter was 36-year-old Moreno and noted that the suspect’s weapon had a sticker with the word Palestine on it and that their investigation had found antisemitic writings. Six women who lived in the neighborhood with Moreno said that the suspect had threatened them, even brandishing a weapon, multiple times and criticized the lack of response from the Conroe Police Department, NBC News reported.

“No one should have died. No one should have been hurt. This should have been handled years ago, and here we are again,” Jill, president of the neighborhood association, told NBC.

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Linda Giutta claimed that a group of women wrote letters and spent a day talking to local officials, the police department, the sheriff’s office as well as the city’s legal department when the problems with Moreno wouldn’t go away, resulting in a cease and desist order, according to NBC. Moreno reportedly threatened one woman, Heather, with a handgun in July 2022 and screamed at her while Heather was taking care of her yard.

“We’re being told ‘see something, say something.’ Well, we’re seeing stuff, we are saying stuff … and Conroe PD is not helping us,” Heather told NBC. “I don’t want to bash them but help us. Please.”

Judy Keith said that she stopped walking at a local park or taking her granddaughter after Moreno tried to hit her several times while she was out, according to NBC.

“I’m afraid to come down here. I used to walk my granddaughter down here to the park and I had to stop doing that,” Keith said.

Police records revealed that Moreno had a history of mental health issues and was arrested on multiple occasions beginning in 2005, according to NBC. Before the shooting, Moreno had pled guilty to carrying a weapon illegally and assaulting a public official.

The Conroe Police Department did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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