Texas shooting
America reels again as a former Air Force member and father opens fire on a church congregation before two local heroes chased him down
IN A NATION STILL FRESHLY GRIEVING ITS WORST mass shooting in history, an armed man claimed 26 lives in a Texan church on Nov. 5. During a Sunday morning service at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, 26-year-old former US Air Force member Devin Kelley, dressed in all-black tactical gear and a ballistic vest, parked his Ford Explorer at a petrol station across the road, got out and began firing towards the sanctuary. Armed with a Ruger AR-556 semi-automatic rifle, he continued unloading the weapon as he entered the church.
Among the victims, who range in age from 18 months to 77 years, are the church pastor’s 14-yearold daughter, eight members of an extended family including a pregnant mother, and a 16-yearold aspiring nurse. Kelley’s mother-in-law was also killed in the attack. At least 20 were injured.
After Kelley left the place of worship, Stephen Willeford, who lives next to the church and had heard the gunfire, ran outside with his own gun and opened fire on the gunman, wounding him.
“He saw that the guy was wearing body armour, and there was a velcro strap, from the back to the front,” his cousin Ken Leonard told CNN. “He knew from that ... that the vulnerable spot was going to be in the side. And so that’s where he shot him.”
Wounded, Kelley fled in his Explorer, while Willeford waved down passing motorist Johnnie Langendorff, got in his truck and told the driver to chase the Ford. After driving for ten minutes at speeds of up to 150km/h, Kelley “lost control on his own and went off into the ditch,” Langendorff told local TV station KSAT.WHEN police arrived minutes later they found Kelley dead in the car from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities said the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute, and that the shooter had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law. “It’s a senseless crime, but we can tell you that there was a domestic situation going on within this family,” Freeman Martin, regional director for the Texas Department of Public Safety, told the media on Nov. 6. “We can’t go into details, but we want to get that out there—that this was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs, there was a domestic situation going on within the family and the in-laws.”
The attack, which comes just weeks after gunman Stephen Paddock fired down onto a country music concert in Las Vegas, killing 58 and injuring hundreds, was the largest mass shooting in the state’s history. “There are so many families who have lost family members, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Sunday. “We appreciate the first responders, who are continuing to try to give the community the answers they need and deserve.”
What authorities do know was that Kelley served at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, working in logistics readiness. He was stationed there from 2010 until he was discharged in 2014, following a 2012 court-martial on accusations he assaulted his spouse and their child, an Air Force spokeswoman tells WHO.
Kelley, who at the time of the massacre was
working in security and lived in New Braunfels, Texas, some 55km from Sutherland Springs, received a bad conduct discharge and 12 months’ confinement as well as a reduction in rank, says the spokeswoman.
“This is just a small, rural farming community,” says Ernest Hajek, a Wilson County commissioner who knew several members of the congregation. “It isn’t really a town—a small church with 40 or 50 congregants at each service. It doesn’t make any sense. I have seen other mass shootings but nothing like this.” ■