Yuma Sun

Authoritie­s review video of Texas church attack

Vice president visits wounded victims at San Antonio hospital

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SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas — Authoritie­s have reviewed video from inside the small-town Texas church where a gunman killed more than two dozen people, including footage that shows the assailant shooting victims in the head during Sunday services, a U.S. official said Wednesday.

The official’s account of the video is consistent with statements made by survivors of the attack. The official was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

The same U.S. official confirmed that the attacker’s cellphone was an iPhone and that the FBI had not yet asked Apple for help obtaining data from the device.

The church regularly recorded its services, and the footage investigat­ors have seen shows several minutes of the attack because there was “no one to turn it off,” according to a law enforcemen­t official who has seen the video. The official also spoke on condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing investigat­ion.

The law enforcemen­t official was among those who went inside the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs after the attack and said several of the pews were overturned, although it was unclear if that was from the attack or from rescue efforts. Bullets had splintered the walls and pews, leaving shards of wood all over the floors.

Vice President Mike Pence arrived in Texas on Wednesday, visiting wounded victims at a San Antonio hospital and later meeting families of the dead in Floresvill­e, not far from Sutherland Springs.

Pence went from table to table at a high school library attempting to console devastated family members.

“The whole country is praying over you,” he told one man who lost his sister-in-law.

He stopped to talk with John Holcombe, whose family was decimated by the shooting. Holcombe, who suffered shrapnel wounds, lost his wife Crystal — who was pregnant with their first child — three of her children, his parents, a brother and a toddler niece.

Pence hugged 7-year-old Evelyn Holcombe, who managed to survive by running out of the church during the attack.

Earlier Wednesday, Pence said that President Donald Trump had ordered federal agencies to provide extensive help to the investigat­ion including 100 on-site FBI agents.

The agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio division said Tuesday agents had not been able to retrieve data from Devin Patrick Kelley’s cellphone.

In a statement Wednesday evening, Apple said it’s offered the FBI technical advice after learning the bureau was trying to access the phone. The company said the FBI had not requested its assistance.

Depending on the model of iPhone and what security features it had, FBI agents might have had a short window to use alternativ­e methods to access its data.

For instance, if the iPhone used Apple’s Touch ID fingerprin­t sensing system, agents could have tried placing the dead gunman’s finger on the phone to unlock it. But that would only have worked within 48 hours of the last time the phone was locked.

Meanwhile, more details emerged about the gunman’s past. School records showed that Kelley was a disciplina­ry problem in high school.

In fall 2006, Kelley’s sophomore year, he was suspended and sent to an alternativ­e school for two months after an unspecifie­d drug-related incident.

He was suspended twice as a junior and three times as a senior for reasons including “insubordin­ation,” ‘‘profane language/ gestures” and “dishonest/false records.”

With each passing year at New Braunfels High School, his grades slipped as well, according to the records.

A B-student overall as a freshman, he failed several classes by his senior year and ended up ranked 260 out of 393 students in his graduating class in 2009. He finished with a 2.3 grade-point average.

 ?? ASSOCIATED PRESS ?? VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE HUGS EVELYN HOLCOMBE at Florsevill­e High School during a stop Wednesday in Floresvill­e, Texas. A man opened fire inside a church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday, killing and wounding many; Holcombe was in the church during the...
ASSOCIATED PRESS VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE HUGS EVELYN HOLCOMBE at Florsevill­e High School during a stop Wednesday in Floresvill­e, Texas. A man opened fire inside a church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday, killing and wounding many; Holcombe was in the church during the...

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