Hundreds join town in mourning
At Sutherland Springs church service, pastor shares heartache, preaches power of faith, love to overcome evil
SUTHERLAND SPRINGS — A week after a former Air Force enlisted man killed 26 worshippers in the worst mass shooting in Texas history, the pastor whose teenage daughter was among the victims called on more than 700 people to choose love.
“This past weekend our country was attacked, our state was attacked, our church was attacked,” Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church Pastor Frank Pomeroy told the standing-room-only crowd Sunday. “We celebrate and remember the veterans who fought and died so that we can have freedom in this country. But last weekend, men, women and children also fought and died for the freedom we have here this morning. We have the freedom to proclaim Christ. Folks, we have the freedom to choose, and rather than choose darkness as one young man did that day, I say we choose life.”
The service, held in a large white tent on a baseball field under heavy security, had the feel of an old-fashioned revival. Those on hand, some among them from Seguin, New Braunfels and San Antonio, joined locals from the Sutherland Springs area as a band played gospel music. Cheers and shouts of “Amen!” echoed around
“We have the freedom to choose, and rather than choose darkness as one young man did that day, I say we choose life.” Frank Pomeroy, pastor who lost his 14-year-old daughter
the tent intermittently during Pomeroy’s opening remarks.
Some raised their hands high in the air as they sang and prayed.
The gathering was the largest in the history of the 100-year-old church, which was cleared out by construction crews last week and given a hasty renovation, with walls painted, windows and ceiling tiles replaced, and carpet removed. Late in the day, the sanctuary reopened as a memorial, with 26 roses and 26 handcrafted chairs placed inside to honor the fallen.
Telling the crowd that “a battle is raging around us … between the principalities of good and evil,” Pomeroy said, “That’s what transpired, but we have the freedom to take that building that was attacked, transform it with the love of God into a memorial to remind everyone that we will never forget. And if anybody knows me, what is my verse? Love never fails.”
The name of the gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, was never uttered during the 75-minute service, and much remains unknown about him. Kelley, 26, of New Braunfels was suspended multiple times from school in New Braunfels but entered basic training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in early 2010. He, was sent to a military prison two years later for abusing his wife, Tessa, and fracturing his infant stepson’s skull.
The crime, a felony that should have prevented him from being able to buy a gun, was never reported to a database used to check firearms purchases. El Paso police say he broke out of a mental health facility in New Mexico and conspired to kill superior officers at Holloman Air Force Base, where he was assigned before going to a military prison in California.
The Air Force said it could not confirm those claims and has offered little information about Kelley, who was given a bad-conduct discharge, or why it failed to report his conviction — a problem that has gone on for decades throughout the armed services.
That prompted Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to say he’d file bipartisan legislation “to fix this broken background check system” as early as Monday to “make sure this sort of thing never happens again.” Cornyn said Kelley had no business buying a gun.
“We have a background check system which is designed to weed out people with mental illness, people who are convicted felons, people who are child, spouse abusers, and this individual was all of those things,” he told reporters after the service.
Waves of grief
The focus this day was far from the many questions stemming from the killings.
Prior to the service, people from other churches dropped off prayer cloths and tiny wooden crosses. Mental health organizations brought therapy dogs.
A prayer sealed in plastic bag along with tissue paper was left in virtually every seat.
“Father God, we pray for the families that are grieving the loss of someone they love,” the prayer began. “Lord, heal the hurting. Be with those that are alone after losing their loved ones. Give them the strength to go on. Be with the children that lost a parent, heal their broken lives and hearts. Provide love and nurture through others. Be with the parent that has lost a child. Heal the broken, heal the hurting. Touch them with your healing hand today. May the Holy Spirit speak peace to their hearts. In the name of Jesus Christ, we pray. Amen.”
Musicians from First Baptist Church of Seguin sang “Just As I Am.”
Pomeroy stressed the teachings of Christ and the need to maintain faith, telling the crowd, “We can’t allow this act that happened last weekend to keep us from church. We can’t use it as an excuse for why we can’t or should not go to church. We can’t allow that act to let us turn heinous and ugly, as the darkness would have us to be.”
Still, Pomeroy’s voice broke when he mentioned that his daughter, Annabelle, 14, was among those Kelley killed when he came to the church armed with an AR-556, a semi-automatic, military-style rifle, and began firing at congregants inside and outside the sanctuary. In addition to the 26 who were gunned down, 20 more were wounded.
“I knew everybody who gave their life that day. Some of them were my best friends. And my daughter,” said a teary-eyed Pomeroy, his voice shaking. “I have no doubt they’re dancing with Jesus today.”
Faith that the dead were in heaven didn’t stop the grieving.
Frances McClintock, 48, of Floresville, thought of the Holcombe family, who lost three generations and eight family members in the shooting. Associate Pastor Bryan Holcombe, 60, and his wife, Karla, 58, lived on a ranch in Floresville not far from her home.
“It’s like waves crashing over, where you almost trick yourself into thinking that everything’s OK,” McClintock said of the past week. “And then it floods back when you get a Facebook message or a phone call or a text. ‘Are you going here, are you going to do this?’ And so it’s just waves right now.”
Pomeroy’s message of forgiveness resonated with many, including Cornyn, a Houston native who grew up in San Antonio.
“Friends, sometimes words fail us. Thank goodness they didn’t fail Pastor Pomeroy this morning,” he said, to applause. “But the rest of us want words to do more than they’re capable of. What happened here in Sutherland Springs defies our feeble powers of comprehension. Maybe the simplest words are the truest, though, and those are this hurts.”
‘Forgive their sins’
Wanting to show her support, Michelle Ortega Gilliam drove her son, Tony, 13, from their home in San Antonio to Sutherland Springs Baptist Church. They prayed. “There’s all the crosses of all the people that passed away,” said Ortega, a registered nurse. “Looking at their lives and how the little ones, their future, was taken one Sunday where they were worshipping.” She added: “It’s just so sad.” Another San Antonian, 68-year-old Thomas Lloyd Archer, called the gathering a “forgiving and very loving” service.
“I think that you do have to make choices,” he said. “And people coming here are making the right choice to forgive and to recognize our lone limitations and our own sin. And our own need for redemption and help.”
Longtime Sutherland Springs Baptist Church member Ted Montgomery, the sole deacon remaining after two others were killed, said that only days before the shooting one of the kids in a youth class asked Karla Holcombe what to do if someone shot up the church.
He didn’t know if the youngster was in the sanctuary at the time of the shooting.
“She said, ‘We would love them and forgive their sins,’ ” said Montgomery, a 69-year-old Vietnam veteran who tended the wounded and later phoned Pomeroy to tell him his daughter was dead.