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Judge says she did not involuntarily commit theater gunman

The Daily Advertiser (http://bit.ly/1GVwEEw ) reports that about 500 people thronged a funeral service Monday for Breaux at the Church of the Assumption in Franklin.

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Meanwhile, family and friends on Monday gathered to remember the two women killed in the shooting, Mayci Marie Breaux and Jillian Johnson. A string instrument and song book are displayed next to the casket of Jillian Johnson during her funeral service at Delhomme Funeral Home in Lafayette, La., Monday, July 27, 2015. Johnson was a victim of the The Grand 16 movie theater shooting in Lafayette on Thursday.

An involuntary commitment would have banned John Russell Houser from buying a firearm under the federal gun law that strengthened state reporting requirements after a mass shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007. Jason Brown, right, husband of Jillian Johnson, at right, embraces his daughter Paxton Myles-Brown, 16, during the funeral service for Jillian Johnson at Delhomme Funeral Home in Lafayette, La., Monday, Ju…

A 2008 petition by the Houser family for a protective order against the man that came to light after last week’s shootings had indicated that such a commitment against his will was ordered.

Houser was subsequently “delivered by deputies to [a] hospital for evaluation”, but Cason said no order for commitment followed.

Sherry Lang, spokeswoman for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, said the agency never received records from any part of Georgia saying that Houser had been involuntarily committed.

Funeral services for Johnson and Breaux were held Monday.

LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) – Jillian Johnson was an artistic force in the Lafayette community who worked to beautify her neighborhood while Mayci Breaux was a young woman looking forward to a new job and married life with a longtime boyfriend.

Johnson’s band mates from a group called The Figs sang during the funeral as her husband, stepdaughter, parents, and brother looked on. A ukulele was placed near her casket.

While an Alabama sheriff said that he denied Houser’s application for a concealed weapons’ permit in 2006, there appears to have been nothing in court filings that would raise concerns in the Federal Bureau of Investigation background check system. Probate Judge Betty Cason, who other media outlets have said involuntarily committed Houser in 2008.

“We know ATF reviewed our sale and said everything is right on our side”, said the store’s attorney, Eric B.

Either way, Houser’s purchase of a.40-caliber semiautomatic handgun at a pawnshop in Phenix City, Ala., last year was legal. That order would have allowed Houser to be evaluated by doctors for up to five days, plus another three days of observation, according to Probate Judge Marc E. D’Antonio, who was the chief clerk at the time in Muscogee County, where the hospital Houser was taken to is located.

Houser was taken to a hospital for that initial evaluation under an “order to apprehend”, court records show. At the end of that five-day period, they had the option to convince him to voluntarily commit himself-if they believed that necessary-or seek a court order forcing him to remain in the hospital for an extended time. One was released earlier Monday.

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Breaux loved to dance, but more than that, she loved her family. Houser, 59, killed himself after the rampage Thursday in Lafayette, La., that left two dead and nine injured.

The Associated Press