Mass shooting survivor wishes shooter was saved

Shooting victim donates to veterans organization

Houston Chronicle
Samantha Ketterer
February 23, 2019

Foster, also a founder of Combined Arms, said that while PTSD is a real issue among veterans, mental health-related, violent incidents reinforce a stereotype of a veteran that’s difficult to undo.

Denise Slaughter believes that the man who nearly killed her three years ago slipped through the cracks.

He was a veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder; a loving person who snapped, his parents said. He ultimately opened fire for 55 terrifying minutes on a west Houston neighborhood, firing at unsuspecting passers-by with a pistol and an AR-15. At the end of the rampage, he and one other person were dead. Six more were injured.

Denise Slaughter, survivor of a 2016 shooting, has helped the veterans organization Combined Arms equip a weight room with a donation that is also helping to build accessible bathrooms and showers. Slaughter believes that the shooter who wounded her could have been saved before he died in a standoff with police in 2016. The shooter, a veteran who reportedly had post-traumatic stress disorder, opened fire for about an hour on a west Houston neighborhood, killing one and injuring six. Two years after the shooting, Slaughter donated money to Combined Arms, an organization that helps veterans find resources they need once they return home. Photo: Brett Coomer, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

Slaughter could have been angry. Instead, her family foundation donated thousands of dollars to a Houston veterans organization, hoping to prevent other service members from ending up in a situation like the man who almost took her life.

“I think he could have been saved,” she said.
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