Firearms instructor shot church gunman
A man who trained others in his Texas church to use guns fatally shot a gunman just seconds after he opened fire.
— A man who trained others in his Texas church to use guns to protect the congregation fatally shot a gunman seconds after he opened fire during a service, the Texas attorney general said Monday.
Jack Wilson fired a single shot, quickly ending the attack that killed two people at the West Freeway Church of Christ in the Fort Wortharea town of White Settlement. More than 240 congregants were in the church at the time.
Wilson’s bio on Facebook listed him as a former Hood County reserve deputy and a firearms instructor. He posted about the attack a few hours after it happened, saying the event “put me in a position that I would hope no one would have to be in. But evil exists, and I had to take out an active shooter in church. I’m thankful to GOD that I have been blessed with the ability and desire to serve him in the role of head of security at the church.”
Speaking outside t he church, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said authorities “can’t prevent mental illness from occurring, and we can’t prevent every crazy person from pulling a gun. But we can be prepared like this church was.”
The Texas Department of Public Safety on Monday identified the attacker as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43. His motive is under investigation.
Investigators searched Kin- nunen’s home in River Oaks, a small nearby city where police said his department’s only contact with the suspected gunman was a couple traffic citations.
“He didn’t exist until yesterday,” Deputy Police Chief Charles Stewart said.
But Kinnunen appeared to have more serious brushes in other jurisdictions. He was arrested in 2009 on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in Fort Worth and in 2013 for theft, according to Tarrant County court records.
He was arrested in 2016 in New Jersey after police found him with 12-gauge shotgun and rounds wrapped in plas- tic in the area of an oil refinery, according to a the Herald News Tribune in East Brunswick. It was not immediately clear how those charges were resolved.
Paxton joined other Texas officials in hailing the state’s gun laws, which allow weap- ons in places of worship. He said the church’s security team was formally organized after a measure was enacted this year that affirmed the right of licensed handgun holders to carry a weapon in places of worship, unless the facility bans them.
“The big emphasis came after they realized they are able to protect themselves,” Paxton said.
That law was passed in the aftermath of the dead- liest mass shooting in Texas history, which was also at a church. In the 2017 massa- cre at First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, a man who opened fire on a Sunday morning congregation killed more than two dozen peo- ple. He later killed himself.
In a livestream of Sunday’s church service in White Set- tlement, the gunman can be seen getting up from a pew and approaching someone at the back of the church before pulling out a gun and opening fire. Congregants can be heard screaming and seen ducking under pews or running as papers fly to the floor.
“I think you can see by the video, that that guy was surrounded rather quickly by more than just a few people,” Paxton said.
Isabel Arreola told the Star-Telegram that she sat near the gunman and that she had never seen him before the service. She said he appeared to be wearing a disguise, perhaps a fake beard, and that he made her uncomfortable.
She said the man stood up, pulled a shotgun from his clothing, opened fire and was quickly shot.
“I was so surprised because I did not know that so many in the church were armed,” she said.
Sunday’s shooting was the second attack on a religious gathering in the U.S. in less than 24 hours. On Saturday night, a man stabbed five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City.