Texas Shooting Takes the Lives of 26 People

A devastating shooting took place last Sunday, Nov. 5 at Sutherland Springs’ Catholic Baptist Church in Wilson County Texas. The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, took the lives of 26 innocent people with 15 magazines and a loaded rifle. The ages of the victims spanned from 17 months to 77 years old.

“You don’t expect to walk into a church and see something like that,especially like when all the bodies were still there. And seeing the children, that’s what hurts the most,” Joe Tackitt, a Wilson County Sheriff, said in an article on CNN.com.

After the shooting, Kelley fled the scene, leaving 26 bodies scattered inside the church. He was shot twice by a local resident named Stephen Willeford in the leg and torso. Transitioning into a car chase, Kelley eventually shot himself, taking his own life by a shot to his own head before crashing. He was found dead in the car.

Kelley was known for his domestic violence in the past. He had previously served in the Air Force, but was courtmartialed in 2012 for assaulting his wife and child. He was disciplined one year in military prison and was discharged for bad-conduct in 2014.

One of the suspected motives for the shooting includes a family dispute. Kelley had sent a threatening text message to his mother-in-law who attends this Baptist Church, not long before the violence.

“This was not racially motivated. It wasn’t over religious beliefs. There was a domestic situation going on with the family and in-laws,” said Christopher Combs the FBI special agent in charge, in an article on CNN.com.

Kelley’s mother-in-law was not at church that Sunday morning, and neither was the pastor, Frank Pomeroy; however, his daughter’s life was taken in the shooting.

According to one of Kelley’s childhood friends, Christopher Leo Longoria, Kelley had been posting threats on social media.  

“He was also posting a lot of non-God beliefs, atheism, a lot of gun violence and a lot of weapons that he was into,” he said in an article on CNN.com.

The bodies were taken to the Bexar County Medical Examiners office in San Antonio, Texas. Nearly half of them were children.

“Most of our church family is gone, our building is probably beyond repair,” the pastor’s wife, Sherri Pomeroy, said in an article on CNN.com.

As of Nov. 8, the FBI obtained the shooter’s cellphone, but it has not yet been accessed.