The son of Dennis Brandl said his father showed signs of mental illness a few months before he opened fire at a Pasadena Memorial High School band competition.
HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — The family of an 83-year-old school shooting suspect who died over the weekend wants answers and they plan to ask the Texas Rangers to investigate.
Dennis Brandl was arrested in February after police said he shot and wounded a spectator during a high school band competition at Pasadena Memorial High School. The gunman was tackled by a group of dads before anyone else was shot.
Brandl was jailed on a $300,000 bond but was taken to Ben Taub Hospital on Friday for unspecified medical treatment, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said. HCSO said Brandl was released to the care of medical providers on Saturday and died on Sunday.
An autopsy report obtained by KHOU 11 says Brandl died from natural causes from “gastrointestinal hemorrhage due to erosion of gastroduodenal artery secondary to duodendahl ulcer.”
But his family wants to know more about what happened leading up to his death.
“There’s just a lot of questions about what happened, when did it happen and how did it happen?” Brandl’s son Brad said on Tuesday. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that anything like that was even remotely possible.”
Randall Kallinen is now representing Brandl’s family. He said Brandl underwent multiple surgeries at the hospital due to internal bleeding.
“He had no gastrointestinal injuries or issues before this, and then to be internally bleeding in several spots, that’s definitely something to be looked into,” Kallinen told KHOU 11 News.
Kallinen said this should be considered an in-custody death, so an outside agency should investigate it.
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Brad Brandl said his father began acting strangely a few months before the shooting.
“October of this last year, my dad started experiencing some sort of mental illness,” he said. “Then it became more problematic and troubling in December.”
He said his father, a retired Navy veteran, never sought treatment and was never diagnosed with a mental illness or dementia.
An attorney representing the accused gunman told KHOU 11 in February that Brandl thought he and his wife were in danger and being chased and that’s what led to the shooting. Brandl had no previous criminal history.
“We were waiting on some sort of medical assessment so we could have my dad bonded out and put in some sort of secure mental facility.
In a statement on Tuesday, an HCSO spokesperson told KHOU 11 that “they’re aware of no evidence to indicate Dennis Brandl suffered any injuries after being booked into the jail.”