The Associated Press
Jim Vertuno
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex.–A gunman dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside a small South Texas church yesterday, killing 26 people in an attack that claimed tight-knit neighbours and multiple family members ranging in age from five-72.
Once the shooting started at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, a town of about 400 people, there was likely “no way” for congregants to escape, said Wilson County Sheriff Joe D. Tackitt Jr.
Officials said about 20 others were wounded.
“He just walked down the centre aisle, turned around, and my understanding was shooting on his way back out,” said Tackitt, who said the gunman also carried a handgun but that he didn’t know if it was fired.
Tackitt described the scene as “terrible.”
“It’s unbelievable to see children, men and women, laying there. Defenceless people,” he said.
Tackitt told CNN this morning that the gunman’s former in-laws attended services at the church “from time to time,” but weren’t in attendance yesterday.
Texas officials confirmed the suspect as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26. They said he lived in New Braunfels, which is about 35 miles north of the Sutherland Springs church.
A U.S. official told The Associated Press that Kelley didn’t appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups.
Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before the attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon.
Kelley received a bad conduct discharge from the Air Force for assaulting his spouse and child, and was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement after a 2012 court-martial.
He served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his 2014 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 church, about 50 km southeast of San Antonio, around 11:20 a.m.
The gunman crossed the street and started firing the 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.
As he left, the shooter was confronted by an armed resident who “grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect,” Martin said.
A short time later, the suspect was found dead in his vehicle at the county line.
Federal agents, including ATF investigators and the FBI’s evidence collection team, swarmed the small rural community of just hundreds of residents.
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 weren’t 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 didn’t identify the armed resident but said the man exchanged gunfire with the gunman, then asked to get in Langendorff’s truck and the pair followed as the gunman drove away.
Langendorff said the gunman eventually lost control of his vehicle and crashed.
He said 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.
“I was strictly just acting on what’s the right thing to do,” Langendorff said.
Among those killed was the church pastor’s 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.
“We lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends,” she wrote. “Neither 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.”
Church member Nick Uhlig, 34, who wasn’t at yesterday’s service, told the AP that his cousin, who was eight months’ pregnant, and her in-laws were among those killed.
He later told the Houston Chronicle that three of his cousin’s children also were slain.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an “act of evil,” later calling the gunman “a very deranged individual.”
