Texas Church Shooting Updates

November 6, 2017

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) – The gunman in a mass shooting at a Texas church had been arrested for animal cruelty in Colorado in 2014. An El Paso County Sheriff’s Office affidavit says deputies arrested Devin Patrick Kelley at a Colorado Springs RV park where he lived.

One neighbor told a deputy that Kelley chased the young Husky, jumped on top of it and struck the dog with a closed fist several times. Another neighbor says Kelley grabbed the dog, threw it into the air, then onto the ground and dragged it to his camper.

Kelley initially refused to leave the camper to speak with officers in the Aug. 1, 2014 incident. He denied abusing the dog.

Officers arrested Kelley for misdemeanor animal cruelty and took the Husky to a veterinary center. Kelley was given a deferred probationary sentence and was ordered to pay $368 in restitution. He complied with the sentence.

Vice President Mike Pence and his wife, Karen Pence, will travel to Texas on Wednesday to meet with those affected by Sunday’s church shooting. Announcing his travel plans in a tweet, Pence says he will visit family members of those killed, those injured in the attack, and first responders in Sutherland Springs.

Pence says, “We are with you Texas.” At least 26 people were killed Sunday by a lone gunman, identified by police as Devin Kelley, and about 20 more were wounded. President Donald Trump is in the midst of a 12-day trip to Asia.

The wife of the First Baptist Church pastor says it gives her “a sliver of encouragement” that their 14-year-old daughter was surrounded by her church family when she died in the shooting. Sherri Pomeroy says Annabelle Pomeroy was with “the church family that she loved fiercely and vice versa.”

Pastor Frank Pomeroy and Sherri Pomeroy were out of town when the gunman opened fire Sunday at the church in Sutherland Springs, killing 26 people and wounding about 20. The gunman was later found dead in his vehicle.

Speaking at a news conference Monday, Sherri Pomeroy said, “Our church was not comprised of members or parishioners. We were a very close family.” She added: “Now most of our church family is gone.” She said that her daughter, who she called Belle, would have struggled to deal with losing so many people.

Authorities in Texas say law enforcement went to the home of the suspected church gunman three years ago to investigate a domestic violence complaint involving him and his then-girlfriend.

Paul Anthony, a spokesman for the Comal County district attorney’s office, told The Associated Press that sheriff’s deputies were called just after 10 p.m. on Feb. 1, 2014, to the New Braunfels home of Devin Patrick Kelley and his family.

Citing a sheriff’s office report, Anthony says a friend of Kelley’s girlfriend told authorities she received a text message from the girlfriend that indicated “her boyfriend was abusing her.” When sheriff’s deputies arrived at the home, they were told by people in the house that there was no problem.

]No arrests were made. Kelley married Danielle Shields two months later.

Kelley was discharged from the Air Force the same year after being punished for allegedly assaulting his spouse and child.

There’s no evidence that a man who killed 26 people in an attack on a rural Texas church Sunday was connected to an anti-fascist movement, despite claims made in a viral story from a conspiracy theorist site.

The widely shared article from YourNewsWire also falsely claims shooter David Kelley was carrying an antifa flag and there was a second gunman.

Authorities have given no indication that the shooter was connected to antifa or that there was another gunman. Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin says the mass shooting stemmed from a domestic situation and was not racially or religiously motivated.

YourNewsWire is a well-known site that traffics in conspiracy theories sometimes based on false information.

Johnnie Langendorff says he was driving to Sutherland Springs to pick up his girlfriend when a barefooted man who’d been exchanging gunfire with the suspect in a deadly Texas church shooting jumped in his truck.

Langendorff told The Associated Press on Monday: “He jumped in my truck and said, ‘He just shot up the church, we need to go get him.’ And I said ‘Let’s go.'” Officials say 26-year-old Devin Patrick Kelley killed 26 people at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on Sunday.

The 27-year-old Langendorrf, who is from Seguin, says he and the unidentified armed resident chased Kelley’s vehicle at speeds approaching 90 mph, before he crashed.

Langendorff said the unidentified armed resident approached the vehicle with his gun drawn, but Kelley didn’t move.

Police found Kelley dead.

The special agent in charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives field office in Houston says three guns have been recovered from the suspect in the deadly church shootings in Texas.

Fred Milanowski said during a news conference Monday that officers recovered a Ruger AR-556 rifle at the church.

Milanowski said two additional handguns were recovered from the vehicle driven by Devin Patrick Kelley – a Glock 9mm and a Ruger .22-caliber.

Milanowski says all three weapons were purchased by the now-deceased suspect. Freeman Martin with the Texas Department of Public Safety said Kelley did not have a license to carry a concealed handgun.

He says he did have a “noncommissioned, unarmed private security license similar to a security guard at a concert-type situation.”

Authorities say the gunman who opened fire in a Texas church had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, who attended the church.

Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin said Monday that the mass shooting stemmed from a domestic situation and was not racially or religiously motivated.

Authorities say that evidence at the scene leads them to believe that Devin Patrick Kelley died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he crashed his car.

He had been chased by armed bystanders.

They say Kelley also used his cellphone to tell his father that he had been shot and didn’t think he would survive.