Four days after the deadly shooting on West Sixth Street early Sunday morning, the Pflugerville neighborhood where suspected gunman Ndiaga Diagne once lived is quiet again, the shock of the attack now receding from view even as questions about his past grow sharper.
The news crews and police vehicles that filled the block as police executed a search warrant in the hours after the shooting are long gone, and the home's driveway now sits empty. Neighbors told Austin Current that, aside from the flashing lights and uniformed officers who arrived soon after the shooting, the home had never drawn attention.
"There were no cops ever," said Chris Finch, who lives next door. "They kept to themselves."
To Finch and others on the street, Diagne appeared to live without incident until investigators came looking for evidence.
However, Bexar County court documents suggest not everything in Diagne's past was as innocuous as it seemed from the outside. Court documents show that years before the West Sixth Street shooting, Diagne had a far more troubled history than neighbors ever saw, one that unfolded inside a family courtroom. Court records show a judge found Diagne had a pattern of family violence, a civil ruling that didn't bar him from owning firearms under Texas law. The documents, obtained by The Texas Tribune and Austin Current, highlight how findings in family court can fail to trigger criminal penalties or gun restrictions, even as research links domestic violence histories to mass shootings.
Diagne's second wife, Aissatou Savare, filed for divorce in Bexar County, where the couple lived at the time, in March 2022. In September of that year, a judge found that Diagne had a "history or pattern of committing family violence" during their marriage. The ruling placed Savare in sole custody of their two sons, a decision that reflected the court's concern about safety, while still permitting Diagne limited, supervised visitation.
Diagne replied to the divorce filings with a handwritten letter refuting some of Savare's claims.
"In our culture and religion, we do not need a marriage certificate to be husband and wife. The only reason we are here is because I applied for a marriage certificate to help her become a legal resident of the United States and later become a citizen," Diagne wrote. "I only object to her lying reason for divorce. Otherwise, I have no problem whatsoever having her out of my life."
The court nonetheless concluded there was a pattern of family violence.
Family violence and gun ownership
Diagne legally obtained his firearms in San Antonio in 2017, years before the divorce ruling, a purchase legal experts say would have been allowed even after a court found he had been violent.
Hays County Assistant District Attorney Greg Cox said because Diagne had no criminal conviction for family violence, he was still legally allowed to own firearms. State law bars people convicted of family violence misdemeanors and felonies from possessing guns for five years after the completion of their sentence and probation.
"Civil courts don't usually trigger those firearm restrictions," Cox said.
Despite a court determining there was a pattern of family violence, Cox said someone would have to initiate a criminal investigation that led to a conviction in order to trigger firearm restrictions. A search of criminal court records in Bexar and Travis counties revealed Diagne had no criminal domestic violence convictions, even as civil courts sounded alarms.
A person may also be barred from possessing firearms if a court issues a domestic violence protective order against them, even without a criminal conviction. However, according to court documents, it does not appear that Diagne had one issued against him, another factor that allowed him to remain armed under state law.
"There are definite gaps in the system that fail to protect not only the victims of domestic violence, but also protect the public, to be quite honest," Cox said.
In Diagne's case, those gaps meant a judge's finding of family violence did not prevent him from owning guns before the West Sixth shooting.
There is an established link between mass shooters and perpetrators of family violence. A study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that almost 70% of mass shootings in the United States from 2014 to 2019 involved a person who had either killed a family member or had a history of domestic violence, a pattern legal experts say surfaces again and again after attacks.
"We're never surprised," said Shelli Edgar Scott, a managing attorney at Texas Legal Services Center, where she assists victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and human trafficking.
"Almost everyone who perpetrates that kind of violence in public has been practicing it at home," she said.
Scott said the hope is always that, if a civil court determines there is family violence, a prosecutor will be notified, but that step often remains untaken, leaving cases stranded between civil and criminal systems.
"For whatever reason, the survivor doesn't want protective order or isn't aware that it's an option," Scott said. "Our hope is that survivors are aware of their options and can make that choice for themselves."
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