11-06-2017, 12:18 PM
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) â A man dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside a church in a small South Texas community on Sunday, killing 26 people and wounding about 20 others in what the governor called the deadliest mass shooting in the stateâs history. The dead ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.
Authorities didnât identify the attacker during a news conference Sunday night, but two other officials â one a U.S. official and one in law enforcement â identified him as Devin Kelley. They spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they werenât authorized to discuss the investigation.
The U.S. official said Kelley lived in a San Antonio suburb and didnât appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups. Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before Sundayâs attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon.
Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for allegedly assaulting his spouse and child, and was sentenced to 12 monthsâ confinement after a 2012 court-martial. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.
At the news conference, the attacker was described only as a white man in his 20s who was wearing black tactical gear and a ballistic vest when he pulled into a gas station across from the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio, around 11:20 a.m.
The gunman crossed the street and started firing a Ruger AR rifle at the church, said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Safety, then continued firing after entering the white wood-frame building, where an 11 a.m. service was scheduled.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr., whose territory includes Sutherland Springs, said there was likely âno wayâ for the church congregation to escape once the shooting started.
âYouâve got your pews on either side. He just walked down the center aisle, turned around and my understanding was shooting on his way back out,â said Tackitt, who said the shooter also carried a handgun but that he didnât know if it was fired.
Tackitt described the scene inside the church as âterrible.â
âItâs unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people,â Tackitt said. âI guess it was seeing the children that were killed. Itâs one thing to see an adult, but to see a 5-year-old ...â
Several weapons were found inside the vehicle and Martin said it was unclear if the attacker died of a self-inflicted wound or if he was shot by the resident who confronted him. He said investigators werenât ready to discuss a possible motive. Martin said 23 of the dead were found in the church, two were found outside and one died after being taken to a hospital.
The man who confronted Kelley had help from another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who told KSAT TV that he was driving past the church as the shooting happened. He didnât identify the armed resident but said the man exchanged gunfire with the gunman, then asked to get in Langendorffâs truck and the pair pursued as the gunman drove away.
Langendorff says the gunman eventually lost control of his vehicle and crashed. He says the other man walked up to the vehicle with his gun drawn and the suspect did not move. He stayed there for at least five minutes, until police arrived.
âI was strictly just acting on whatâs the right thing to do,â Langendorff said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
âThere are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed,â Abbott said. âOur hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those whoâve lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities.â
Among those killed was the church pastorâs 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message.
âWe lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends,â she wrote. âNeither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation. I am at the charlotte airport trying to get home as soon as i can.â
Federal agents swarmed the small rural community of a few hundred residents, including ATF investigators and the FBIâs evidence collection team.
Alena Berlanga, a resident of nearby Floresville, known for its annual peanut festival, said everyone knows everyone else in the sparsely populated county.
âEverybodyâs going to be affected and everybody knows someone whoâs affected,â Berlanga said.
Church member Nick Uhlig, 34, wasnât at Sundayâs service, said his cousin, who was 8 months pregnant, and her in-laws were among those killed.
âWe just gathered to bury their grandfather on Thursday,â he said, shaking his head.
President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an âact of evilâ and said he was monitoring the situation.
Later Sunday, two sheriffâs vans were parked outside the gate of a cattle fence surrounding the address listed for Kelley on the rural, western outskirts of New Braunfels, north of San Antonio.
Ryan Albers, 16, who lives across the road, said he heard intensifying gunfire coming from that direction in recent days.
âIt was definitely not just a shotgun or someone hunting,â Albers said. âIt was someone using automatic weapon fire.â
The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video.
In a video of its Oct. 8 service, a congregant who spoke and read Scripture pointed to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting a week earlier as evidence of the âwicked natureâ of man. That shooting left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
Until Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas had been a 1991 attack in Killeen, when a mentally disturbed man crashed his pickup truck through a restaurant window at lunchtime and started shooting people, killing 23 and injuring more than 20 others.
The University of Texas was the site of one of the most infamous mass shootings in modern American history, when U.S. Marine sniper Charles Whitman climbed the Austin campusâ clock tower in 1966 and began firing on stunned people below, killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others. He had killed his wife and mother before heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001.
___https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/26-killed-in-church-attack-in-texas-deadliest-mass-shooting/ar-AAutxtq?OCID=ansmsnnews11
Authorities didnât identify the attacker during a news conference Sunday night, but two other officials â one a U.S. official and one in law enforcement â identified him as Devin Kelley. They spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they werenât authorized to discuss the investigation.
The U.S. official said Kelley lived in a San Antonio suburb and didnât appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups. Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before Sundayâs attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon.
Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for allegedly assaulting his spouse and child, and was sentenced to 12 monthsâ confinement after a 2012 court-martial. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.
At the news conference, the attacker was described only as a white man in his 20s who was wearing black tactical gear and a ballistic vest when he pulled into a gas station across from the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, about 30 miles southeast of San Antonio, around 11:20 a.m.
The gunman crossed the street and started firing a Ruger AR rifle at the church, said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Safety, then continued firing after entering the white wood-frame building, where an 11 a.m. service was scheduled.
Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr., whose territory includes Sutherland Springs, said there was likely âno wayâ for the church congregation to escape once the shooting started.
âYouâve got your pews on either side. He just walked down the center aisle, turned around and my understanding was shooting on his way back out,â said Tackitt, who said the shooter also carried a handgun but that he didnât know if it was fired.
Tackitt described the scene inside the church as âterrible.â
âItâs unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenseless people,â Tackitt said. âI guess it was seeing the children that were killed. Itâs one thing to see an adult, but to see a 5-year-old ...â
Several weapons were found inside the vehicle and Martin said it was unclear if the attacker died of a self-inflicted wound or if he was shot by the resident who confronted him. He said investigators werenât ready to discuss a possible motive. Martin said 23 of the dead were found in the church, two were found outside and one died after being taken to a hospital.
The man who confronted Kelley had help from another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who told KSAT TV that he was driving past the church as the shooting happened. He didnât identify the armed resident but said the man exchanged gunfire with the gunman, then asked to get in Langendorffâs truck and the pair pursued as the gunman drove away.
Langendorff says the gunman eventually lost control of his vehicle and crashed. He says the other man walked up to the vehicle with his gun drawn and the suspect did not move. He stayed there for at least five minutes, until police arrived.
âI was strictly just acting on whatâs the right thing to do,â Langendorff said.
Gov. Greg Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history.
âThere are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed,â Abbott said. âOur hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those whoâve lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities.â
Among those killed was the church pastorâs 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message.
âWe lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends,â she wrote. âNeither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation. I am at the charlotte airport trying to get home as soon as i can.â
Federal agents swarmed the small rural community of a few hundred residents, including ATF investigators and the FBIâs evidence collection team.
Alena Berlanga, a resident of nearby Floresville, known for its annual peanut festival, said everyone knows everyone else in the sparsely populated county.
âEverybodyâs going to be affected and everybody knows someone whoâs affected,â Berlanga said.
Church member Nick Uhlig, 34, wasnât at Sundayâs service, said his cousin, who was 8 months pregnant, and her in-laws were among those killed.
âWe just gathered to bury their grandfather on Thursday,â he said, shaking his head.
President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an âact of evilâ and said he was monitoring the situation.
Later Sunday, two sheriffâs vans were parked outside the gate of a cattle fence surrounding the address listed for Kelley on the rural, western outskirts of New Braunfels, north of San Antonio.
Ryan Albers, 16, who lives across the road, said he heard intensifying gunfire coming from that direction in recent days.
âIt was definitely not just a shotgun or someone hunting,â Albers said. âIt was someone using automatic weapon fire.â
The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video.
In a video of its Oct. 8 service, a congregant who spoke and read Scripture pointed to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting a week earlier as evidence of the âwicked natureâ of man. That shooting left 58 dead and more than 500 injured.
Until Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas had been a 1991 attack in Killeen, when a mentally disturbed man crashed his pickup truck through a restaurant window at lunchtime and started shooting people, killing 23 and injuring more than 20 others.
The University of Texas was the site of one of the most infamous mass shootings in modern American history, when U.S. Marine sniper Charles Whitman climbed the Austin campusâ clock tower in 1966 and began firing on stunned people below, killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others. He had killed his wife and mother before heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001.
___https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/breakingnews/26-killed-in-church-attack-in-texas-deadliest-mass-shooting/ar-AAutxtq?OCID=ansmsnnews11