It was a dark sunday for Texas church on Sunday, where a gunman clad in black attire in a baptist church, killing more than two dozen people in the largest mass shooting in the state’s history, officials said.
Twenty-six people were killed during the shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Sunday evening.
“We don’t know if that number will rise or not, but we know is that’s too many and this will be a long, suffering mourning for those in pain,” he said.
We are dealing with the largest mass shooting in our state’s history,” he added.
The shooter is also dead, officials said.
Law enforcement officials identified the gunman on Sunday evening as Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of neighboring Comal County. Officials were preparing to search his home. Texas officials would say on the record only the shooter was a “young white male.”
There was no immediate information on the reason behind the shooting, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackett said. Federal officials said that while the gunman’s motive was unclear, there were no obvious signs of a connection to terrorism.
“I never in a million years could of believed Devin could be capable of this kind of thing,” Dave Ivey, the shooter’s uncle, told NBC News. “I am numb. … My family will suffer because of his coward actions. … I am so sorry for the victims in Texas.”
Ann Stefanek, a spokeswoman for the Air Force, confirmed that Kelly was court-martialed in 2012 on two charges of assaulting his spouse and their child. He was confined for a year, reduced in rank to airman basic E-1 and given a bad conduct discharge in 2014, Stefanek said.
