XPost: alt.private.investigator, alt.sci.sociology, alt.america   
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   From: thanks.democrats@splcenter.org   
      
   Gunman Kills at Least 26 in Attack on Rural Texas Church   
      
   Read the latest on the Texas shooting with Monday’s updates.   
      
   SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Tex. — A gunman clad in all black, with a   
   ballistic vest strapped to his chest and a military-style rifle   
   in his hands, opened fire on parishioners at a Sunday service at   
   a small Baptist church in rural Texas, killing at least 26   
   people and turning this tiny town east of San Antonio into the   
   scene of the country’s newest mass horror.   
      
   The gunman was identified by the Texas Department of Public   
   Safety as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26. Mr. Kelley, who lived in New   
   Braunfels, Tex., died shortly after the attack.   
      
   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.   
      
   The motive for the attack was unclear on Sunday, but the grisly   
   nature of it could not have been clearer: Families gathered in   
   pews, clutching Bibles and praying to the Lord, were murdered in   
   cold blood on the spot.   
      
   Mr. Kelley started firing at the First Baptist Church in   
   Sutherland Springs not long after the Sunday morning service   
   began at 11 a.m., officials said. He was armed with a Ruger   
   military-style rifle, and within minutes, many of those inside   
   the small church were either dead or wounded. The victims ranged   
   in age from 5 to 72, and among the dead were several children, a   
   pregnant woman and the pastor’s 14-year-old daughter. It was the   
   deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history. At least 20 more   
   were wounded.   
      
   “It’s something we all say does not happen in small communities,   
   although we found out today it does,” said Joe Tackitt, the   
   sheriff of Wilson County, which includes Sutherland Springs.   
      
   Sheriff Tackitt and other officials said the gunman first   
   stopped at a gas station across Highway 87 from the church. He   
   drove across the street, got out of his car and began firing   
   from the outside, moving to the right side of the church, the   
   authorities said. Then he entered the building and kept firing.   
      
   The authorities received their first call about a gunman at   
   about 11:20 a.m. Officials and witnesses said Mr. Kelley   
   appeared to be prepared for an assault, with black tactical   
   gear, multiple rounds of ammunition and a ballistic vest.   
      
   “He went there, he walked in, started shooting people and then   
   took off,” said Representative Henry Cuellar, a Texas   
   congressman who represents the region and who was briefed by law   
   enforcement officials.   
      
   When Mr. Kelley emerged from the church, an armed neighbor   
   exchanged gunfire with him, hitting Mr. Kelley, who fled in his   
   vehicle. Neighbors apparently followed him, chasing him into the   
   next county, Guadalupe County, where Mr. Kelley crashed his car.   
   Mr. Kelley was found dead in his vehicle. Officials said it was   
   unclear how Mr. Kelley had died.   
      
   At the church, he left behind a scene of carnage. Of the 26   
   fatalities, 23 people were found dead inside the church, two   
   were found outside, and one died later at a hospital.   
      
   Speaking at a news conference in Japan, the first stop on his   
   tour of Asia, President Trump called the shooting a “mental   
   health problem at the highest level” and not “a guns situation,”   
   adding the gunman was a “very deranged individual.” He also   
   ordered flags flown at half-staff at the White House and all   
   federal buildings through Thursday.   
      
   In Floresville, Tex., hours after the attack, Scott Holcombe,   
   30, sat with his sister on the curb outside the emergency room   
   at Connally Memorial Medical Center. They were both in tears.   
   Their father, Bryan Holcombe, had been guest preaching at the   
   church, they said, and he and their mother, Karla Holcombe, were   
   killed.   
      
   “I’m dumbfounded,” Mr. Holcombe said, also noting that his   
   pregnant sister-in-law, Crystal Holcombe, had been killed. “This   
   is unimaginable. My father was a good man, and he loved to   
   preach. He had a good heart.”   
      
   His sister, Sarah Slavin, 33, added: “They weren’t afraid of   
   death. They had a strong faith, so there’s comfort in that. I   
   feel like my parents, especially my mom, wasn’t scared.”   
      
   A parishioner, Sandy Ward, said that a daughter-in-law and three   
   of her grandchildren were shot. Her grandson, who is 5, was shot   
   four times and remained in surgery Sunday night. She said she   
   was awaiting word on her other family members.   
      
   Ms. Ward said she did not attend services on Sunday because of   
   her troubled knees and a bad hip. “I just started praying for   
   everybody who was there” when she learned of the shooting, she   
   said.   
      
   At a news conference on Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott said that he   
   and other Texans were asking “for God’s comfort, for God’s   
   guidance and for God’s healing for all those who are suffering.”   
      
   The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol,   
   Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were helping in the   
   investigation, which was being led by the Texas Rangers.   
      
   The shooting unfolded on the eighth anniversary of the attack in   
   2009 on Fort Hood in Texas, when an Army psychiatrist, Maj.   
   Nidal Malik Hasan, killed 13 people in one of the deadliest mass   
   shootings at an American military base. Major Hasan carried out   
   his attack in an attempt to wage jihad on American military   
   personnel.   
      
   The death toll on Sunday also exceeded the number killed in 1966   
   by a student at the University of Texas at Austin, Charles   
   Whitman, who opened fire from the school’s clock tower in a day   
   of violence that ultimately killed 17. It also exceeded the   
   number killed during a rampage at a restaurant in Killeen in   
   1991 in which a gunman fatally shot 23 people and then took his   
   own life.   
      
   And the shooting on Sunday occurred more than two years after   
   Dylann S. Roof opened fire at Emanuel African Methodist   
   Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., in June 2015, killing nine   
   people, including the pastor. The motive in that attack was   
   racial hatred — Mr. Roof, a white supremacist, plotted an   
   assault on a black congregation — but no motive has been   
   established by the authorities in the shooting in Sutherland   
   Springs. The First Baptist Church is predominantly white, and   
   Mr. Kelley is white.   
      
   The authorities said Mr. Kelley used an Ruger AR-15 variant — a   
   knockoff of the standard service rifle carried by the American   
   military for roughly half a century.   
      
   Almost all AR-15 variants legally sold in the United States fire   
   only semiautomatically, and they were covered by the federal   
   assault weapons ban that went into effect in 1994. Since the ban   
   expired in 2004, the weapons have been legal to sell or possess   
   in much of the United States, and sales of AR-15s have surged.   
      
   Ruger’s AR-15s made for civilian markets sell for about $500 to   
   $900, depending on the model.   
      
   Mr. Kelley grew up in New Braunfels, in his parents’ nearly $1   
      
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