Gunman massacres 26 worshippers at Baptist church, Sutherland Springs, Texas

The Sunday service at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in rural Texas, USA that began last weekend with a rendition of Happiness is the Lord.

A video posted on YouTube showed pastor, Frank Pomeroy, telling parishioners to walk around the room and shake somebody’s hand.

“Tell them it’s good to see them in God’s house this morning.”

Barely 20 minutes into the service (about 11.30am), a young man dressed in black tactical assault garb, parked his car across the street from the church, then strolled over with an AR-15 assault rifle.

He moved to one side of the church and began shooting at the small, white clapboard building.

A state policeman named Freeman Martin told reporters he saw the man open fire from another angle before entering the sparsely furnished and whitewashed sanctuary and started firing on the congregation that typically hosts 50 people.

By the time the gun smoke filtered away, he had shot dead 23. The cop said two others died outside the church and one died later in hospital.

(Inset) Carrie Matula embraces a woman after the shooting

Twenty were wounded. The ages of the victims ranged from five to 72-year-old. One witness said that about half the congregation was killed in one fell swoop last Sunday.

The pastor, Frank Pomeroy, was not present, but his 14-year-old daughter was killed. The victims, including a pregnant woman, were aged from five to 72. Twenty-three people died inside the church and two outside. Another person died in hospital.

A CBS report said four children from the same family were shot: a five-year-old boy who was hit four times and was in surgery; a girl, also five; another girl aged seven who was also in surgery; and an eight-year-old who hid under a pew. Police did not confirm the figures.

Local residents, Scott Holcombe and Sarah Slavin told The New York Times that their parents, Bryan and Karla Holcombe, were among the dead.

Read Also: Sutherland Springs: Texas church shooting leaves 26 dead

Speaking in tears outside a hospital, 15 miles from Sutherland Springs, Mr Holcombe said: “I’m dumbfounded. This is unimaginable.”
As the gunman stepped out of the church, a local resident shot at the killer, Mr Martin said. “

The suspect dropped his rifle and fled. He climbed into his car and drove away, with the local man and his neighbour in pursuit.

Kelley drove north and crashed close to the county border, where he was found dead in a car loaded with weapons. Mr Martin said that it was unclear whether he had died of a self-inflicted wound or whether he had been shot by someone else.

The neighbour, Jonnie Langendorff, told the Ksat news station: “We were doing about 95mph, going around traffic and everything.

Eventually he came to kind of a slowdown and after that we got within just a few feet of him and he got off the road.

He just lost control and that’s when I parked my vehicle. The other gentleman jumped out and had his rifle drawn on him but he didn’t move after that.”

At the press conference officials refused to speculate on the motive for the atrocity. “If you came here wanting to know the motive behind this shooting you are going to leave here disappointed,” Mr Martin said.

Albert Gamez Jr, a Wilson County commissioner, said that Sutherland Springs was a small community where everyone knew one another. “You never expect something like this,” he said. “My heart is broken.”

Residents of the village, a rural community of about 400 people 30 miles east of San Antonio, saw their church surrounded by police and emergency vehicles. Many gathered at a community centre to learn the fate of loved ones.

“The tragedy of course is worsened by the fact that it occurred in a church, a place of worship,” Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, said. He said that he was not sure whether the death toll would rise. “All we know is that it’s too many.”

Joe Tackitt, the sheriff, appeared shell-shocked. “You all in here know what happened today,” he said. “It’s something we always say does not happen in small communities. But we found out today it does.”

The gunner
A thorough police check found that 26-years-old Devin Patrick Kelley was a member of the US Air Force and served at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, according to Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek.

He was court-martialed in 2012 for assault on his spouse and assault on their child, according to Stefanek. He served a year in confinement, received a bad conduct discharge and had his rank reduced, she said.

In April 2016, Kelley purchased the Ruger AR-556 rifle he allegedly used in the shooting from a store in San Antonio, Texas, a law enforcement official said.

There was no disqualifying information in the background check conducted as required for the purchase, a law enforcement official told CNN.

At one point, the shooter tried to get a license to carry a gun in Texas but was denied by the state, Abbott said, citing the director of Texas’ Department of Public Safety.

“So how was it that he was able to get a gun? By all the facts that we seem to know, he was not supposed to have access to a gun,” Abbott said. “So how did this happen?”

That appear to be the price the American people will continue to pay for freedom.

Gbubemi God’s Covenant Snr