Shooting at Nebraska Target reveals loopholes in gun laws

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — During the last three years of his life, Joseph Jones was repeatedly committed to psychiatric hospitals because of his schizophrenia and delusions that a drug cartel was after him. The Nebraska man once lay down on a Kansas freeway because he was about to be run over by a truck, but officers attacked him as he ran from vehicles. His family and the police repeatedly confiscated his weapons.

But Jones could still legally purchase firearms, and there was little law enforcement could do. On one occasion, a deputy returned him a Glock pistol, while on another, a sheriff’s department confiscated his gun despite questions about its safekeeping. Last month, Jones opened fire at an Omaha Target store with a legally purchased AR-15 rifle. Nobody was hit by Jones’ gunshots, but police shot dead the 32-year-old as panicked shoppers fled.

The episode shows how gun laws fail to keep firearms out of the hands of deeply concerned people, despite national efforts to pass warning signs in recent years.

Mental health experts say that most people with mental illness are not violent and they are more likely to be victims of violent crime. Access to firearms is a big part of the problem.

“There’s no excuse for him to buy a gun,” Jones’ uncle Larry Derksen Jr. said. “It was just inevitable that something would happen.”

In August 2021, an MP was called out because Derksen refused to return a gun to his nephew, who had just been released from a mental hospital. Derksen said Jones was paranoid, heard voices, and traveled across several states fearing a cartel would be after him, according to an incident report from the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office.

But Jones told the deputy he was on medication, felt fine, and had no intention of hurting anyone. The gun was clean, and the only conviction Jones had was for a DUI after colliding with another vehicle years earlier on his way home from a bar.

“I had no reason,” the MP wrote in the report, “to suspect that Joseph might not own a firearm.”

Nebraska is not one of the 19 states with a red flag law. Also known as “Extreme Risk Protection Orders,” they are designed to limit the purchase of guns or temporarily remove them from people who could harm themselves or someone else.

A warning signal law was proposed for Nebraska this year, but it has yet to receive a legislative hearing.

“This is a type of example that calls for an extreme risk protection order,” said Kris Brown, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “It actually breaks my heart that this didn’t happen.”

Federal law has banned some mentally ill people from purchasing guns since 1968, including those deemed a danger to themselves or others, committed involuntarily, found not guilty by reason of insanity, or unable to appear in court stand.

But it sets what Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman John Ham described as a “very high bar”. In order for a person’s name to be submitted to the FBI for inclusion in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, they must undergo a hearing deeming them unable to mind their personal affairs due to a mental illness.

The law describes him as “classified as mentally handicapped”. Each state has a different process, but the multiple three-day involuntary commitments detailing Jones’ family and law enforcement records did not prompt such a hearing.

A few years ago, Jones’ family was so distraught that they considered going through the process. They are familiar with some of the court cases because Jones’ mother also has schizophrenia, is unable to function and has had to be placed in a group home.

But they decided not to pursue it because they convinced law enforcement to step in and put Jones in a psychiatric hospital.

In November 2021, the family reported that Jones threatened his grandmother and asked for a pistol that his uncle kept so that he could kill himself, according to a report by the Sarpy County Sheriff’s Office.

His grandmother, who was so scared she went into hiding, told MPs that her grandson would “be fine for a few days” but then “would get worse” if he returned to drinking and using the unregulated herbal pain reliever kratom. and possibly other drugs.

Deputies handcuffed Jones and took him to a hospital for a check-up. Derksen said the family thought the hospitalization would have the same effect as a formal hearing. Doctors can start the hearing process, but there’s no record of it, said Bonnie Moore, Sarpy County’s assistant district attorney.

At the time, Derksen asked MPs to take custody of the pistol. Sarpy County Sheriff Jeff Davis said his department never returned the gun, despite repeated requests from Jones.

“Under the wording of the law, some would say that perhaps taking his gun is a violation of his Second Amendment rights. But we’ve always played it safe,” Davis said, noting that the circumstances surrounding the gun’s removal were far more alarming than a congressman’s return of the firearm.

The problems only escalated. In June 2022, Jones’ grandmother reported him missing, saying he had stopped taking his schizophrenia medication months earlier. His employer, a garage door company, said he no longer shows up for work.

Police found him in Kansas, where he was stranded on an Emporia-area freeway and told officers he wanted “to be run over by a semi-truck,” according to the Sarpy County incident report.

Derksen said one of the first things Jones did after returning from Kansas was to go to a Cabela store and buy a shotgun. The family took this gun as they had others. Derksen’s bargaining chip was that he owned the duplex where Jones lived with his grandmother.

Jones recently called the FBI to report some sort of harassment, his uncle said; The agency said it could not discuss certain calls.

Police have not said why Jones entered the target with 13 loaded rifle magazines and fired multiple shots. Derksen said he believes his nephew did not want to carry out a mass shooting but instead wanted the police to kill him. He said his nephew had delusions that if he didn’t kill himself, the cartel would harm his family.

A timeline released by police made no mention of Jones firing directly at customers or workers. Instead, he fired his AR-15 rifle in the air and at inanimate objects, including a self-service checkout and a beverage cooler. Authorities ordered him to drop the gun more than 20 times, and after Jones said, “I’m going to kill you!” he was shot once.

“We really feel sorry for the people who were traumatized at Target and even for the police officer who was forced to take that shot,” Derksen said. “We know they did what they had to do. It just never should have gotten there.”

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Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas. Lindsay Whitehurst in Washington, DC and Bernard Condon in New York contributed to this report.

Josh Funk and Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press

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