SUTHERLAND
SPRINGS, Tex. — Law enforcement officers investigating the mass
shooting at a church that killed 26 people here said on Monday that “a
domestic situation” within the gunman’s family may have motivated the
killing.
“The
suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” Freeman Martin, a
spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said during a news
conference Monday morning. “We know that he had made threatening texts
and we can’t go into detail into that domestic situation that is
continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated.”
“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs, it was a domestic situation going on,” Mr. Martin added.
The
moments following the horrific mass shooting on Sunday morning came
into clearer view on Monday, as the county sheriff detailed a firefight
and car chase that ended with the gunman, Devin P. Kelley, 26, dead after a crash.
The
recurrent bursts of gunfire were the first sign of trouble at the First
Baptist Church in this rural Texas town, but even that said little
about the horrors that had befallen the faithful at their house of
worship. Inside, pools of blood splattered across the small church led
back to dozens of dead and dying parishioners.
As
many as 14 children and a pregnant woman lay lifeless. Those dead
inside the church ranged from 18 months to 77 years of age, according to
law enforcement officials.
Witnesses Describe Shooting in Texas Church
Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, opened fire
in a church in rural Texas on Sunday, killing at least 26 people. He
was pursued by residents and found dead in his car.
By NATALIA V. OSIPOVA, CHRIS CIRILLO and CAMILLA
SCHICK on
Publish Date November 6, 2017.
Photo by Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
Sheriff
Joe Tackitt of Wilson County said that law enforcement found “blood
everywhere” inside the church. “Wherever you walked in the church, there
was death,” he said.
Sheriff
Tackitt said he believed the gunman went around the outside of the
church firing rounds before entering and shooting at parishioners. After
he left the church, he and an armed bystander engaged in a brief
“firefight” before Mr. Kelley got into his vehicle, according to the
sheriff. The gunman had dropped his rifle in the church after
slaughtering the parishioners; he pulled a pistol during his exchange
with the bystander.
Mr.
Kelley contacted his father from his cellphone during the chase to tell
him that he had been shot, according to law enforcement. Mr. Kelley
told his father that he “didn’t think he was going to make it.” He
subsequently shot himself, though officials said they were not yet sure
if that shot had caused his death.
Left
behind at the church alongside the bodies were 30-round magazines and
“dozens of rounds” of ammunition, potentially hundreds. The sheriff said
he had seen nothing to suggest that the gunman had modified his weapon
to make it act like an automatic firearm, like the gunman in the mass
shooting in Las Vegas who had used a “bump stock.”
The
sheriff described a horrific and methodical killing. Mr. Kelley
appeared to have begun at the front of the church, having “shot his way
in,” and fired his weapon from side to side as he paced through the
room.
“There
was nothing anyone could do until he came out,” Sheriff Tackitt said.
The sheriff later declined to give more information about what had
happened inside the church.
The
bystander — whom Sheriff Tackitt called a “hero” but declined to give
his name — waved down a man in a vehicle and the two began pursuing the
gunman, Sheriff Tackitt said in an interview with CBS. They may have
engaged in a firefight along the way before the gunman’s vehicle crashed
into a fence.
Johnnie
Langendorff, the driver, said in an interview with local ABC News
television affiliate KSAT that he sprang to action after he encountered
the two men exchanging gunfire. After the armed bystander explained the
situation, the two took off after the gunman. “He got a little bit of a
jump on us. We were doing about 95” — miles per hour — “around traffic
and everything. Eventually he came to a slowdown and we got within just a
few feet of him and he got off the road.”
Mr.
Langendorff said that the gunman lost control of his vehicle. Mr.
Langendorff parked and the armed bystander drew his rifle, which he kept
trained on the gunman’s vehicle until police officers arrived about
five minutes later, he said. The two men had been on the phone with
police dispatch during the chase.
Mr.
Kelley’s in-laws were interviewed by investigators Sunday night in
Sutherland Springs. They were not in the town at the time of the
shooting, according to law enforcement officials.
Mr.
Kelley was clad all in black, with a ballistic vest strapped to his
chest and a military-style rifle in his hands, when he opened fire on
parishioners, turning this tiny town east of San Antonio into the scene
of the country’s newest mass horror.
He
had served in the Air Force at a base in New Mexico but was
court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child. He
was sentenced to 12 months’ confinement and received a bad conduct
discharge in 2014, according to Ann Stefanek, the chief of Air Force
media operations.
Mr.
Kelley did not have a license to carry, according to investigators who
briefed the news media on Monday morning, but he had a private security
license “similar to a security guard at a concert,” according to
investigators. Three weapons belonging to Mr. Kelley were recovered
during the investigation — a rifle at the church and two handguns in his
car.
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