27 DEAD IN TEXAS CHURCH MASSACRE
Child aged two and pastor’s daughter, 14, among the victims as gunman shoots ‘every single person’ at tiny Baptist service
UP to 27 worshippers – including a child aged two – were feared dead last night after a gunman opened fire on a church congregation in Texas.
Police said the killer, who was named last night as Devin Patrick Kelley, walked into the tiny First Baptist Church and started shooting half way through yesterday’s service.
Around 25 people were reportedly injured after the attack on the largely white congregation.
Police said the gunman, who was wearing ‘full gear’, fled the church in Sutherland Springs – which has only 50 regular worshippers – in a car. He was pursued ten miles into a neighbouring county where he was killed.
It was unclear whether he was shot by police officers or killed himself.
A witness near the church said that at about 11.30am she heard around 20 shots from what sounded like a semiautomatic inside the building.
Others said it sounded as if the gunman reloaded at least once.
Four helicopters ferried the injured to hospital in the nearest city of San Anto- nio, 30 miles away, as FBI agents arrived to help with the investigation.
The total death toll was not confirmed but officials said it was ‘more than 20’ and that ‘there were kids involved’.
There were claims that ‘half the congregation’ had been killed. Local emergency sources said last night every single person in the church was shot, and were all either killed or seriously injured.
A six-year-old boy was shot four times and was undergoing emergency surgery last night.
Policeman Albert Gamez Jr told CBS News: ‘The details are kind of sketchy but what I know right now, what they’re telling me, like 27 deceased and over 20, 25 injured.’
The tight-knit rural community has just one church, two petrol stations, a general store, a tyre shop and a community centre. Its population in 2000 was just 362.
The church usually posts its Sunday services on YouTube and the congregation is a mix of retired people and young families. Serv- ices have a strong evangelical flavour, with last Sunday’s featuring electric guitars and a motorbike parked near the altar.
Investigators believe yesterday’s service may have been filmed.
The 14-year-old daughter of the church’s pastor was among those killed in the mass shooting. Annabelle Renee Pomeroy ‘was one very beautiful, special child,’ her father, First Baptist Church Pastor Frank Pomeroy, said last night. The girl was her father’s youngest daughter. The pastor said he and his wife were away in Oklahoma when the shooter opened fire.
Albert Gamez, a local official, said: ‘It’s a tragic day. My heart is broken. You never think it would happen and then it does. It doesn’t matter where you’re at.’
Texas governor Greg Abbott said: ‘Our prayers are with all who were harmed by this evil act. Our thanks to law enforcement for their response.’ Donald Trump, who is touring Asia, wrote on Twitter: ‘May God be with the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI and law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan.’
According to US media, Kelley apparently used to serve in the military. The married 26-yearold lived in New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, about 30 miles from the church.
A LinkedIn account appearing to belong to Kelley describes him as serving in the US Air Force from his 2009 high school graduation until 2013, after which he briefly taught at a summer Bible school.
‘My heart is broken’
‘Beautiful, special child’
On a now- deleted Facebook account he recently displayed an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle as his profile picture.
He was also pictured with a baby who may have been his child.
The shooting comes little more than a month after Stephen Paddock shot 58 people dead at a music festival in Las Vegas, the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
Church shootings are increasingly common in the US.
In 2015, nine people were killed by Dylann Roof, a 21-year- old white supremacist, during a prayer service in a black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
In September, African-American Emanuel Samson allegedly sprayed a church in Nashville, Tennessee, with bullets – killing a woman and wounding six others.
A note which police say he left in his car suggested he was doing it in revenge for the Charleston outrage.
All of the victims at the multiracial church were white although it was unclear whether Samson – who was masked and wearing a bullet-proof vest – targeted them specifically.
A late term abortion provider, Dr George Tiller, was shot dead in his Kansas church by an anti-abortion extremist in 2009.