Police are steadily revealing their findings after Sunday’s massacre in Sutherland Springs outside of San Antonio. At the First Baptist Church, a solitary gunman killed at least 27 people (including the 14-year-old daughter of one of the church’s pastors) in the deadliest mass shooting that’s ever taken place at a U.S. house of worship. Now, CBS News reports that authorities have revealed the name of their suspect — Devin Patrick Kelley — who was reportedly discovered dead in his vehicle after a brief pursuit.
The Facebook profile of Kelley has already been pulled from the social media network, but the Daily Beast and Daily Mail nabbed these screencaps. Reportedly, the gun was captioned as follows: “She’s a bad b*tch.”
Outlets are currently digging up information on Kelley, a 26-year-old married man who taught Sunday school for a short period of time. He lived in the San Antonio suburb of New Braunfels, where authorities reportedly conducted a Sunday evening raid on his home. During a press conference in Stockdale, law enforcement officials revealed that an onlooker at the church disarmed the suspect before he fled.
According to San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT, Kelley was reportedly dressed in “full gear” before allegedly entering the church and beginning to fire at around noon on Sunday. Kelley served in the U.S. air force for four years before being dishonorably discharged and court martialed in 2014 following the domestic assault of his wife and child.
CBS News reports that Kelley used an “AR-15 style weapon” during the course of the massacre. It should be noted that those who are dishonorably discharged from the military are unauthorized to lawfully possess firearms of any kind.
UPDATE #1 – 11:00pm EST: CNN reports that a local resident may have stopped Kelley when he “grabbed his own rifle and engaged the gunman,” according to Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin. “The suspect dropped his rifle, which was a Ruger AR assault-type rifle and fled from the church.”
A man who lives next to the church grabbed his own rifle and engaged the gunman who then dropped his rifle and fled https://t.co/fiIoEwoc0a pic.twitter.com/fvN56Fcy1c
— CNN (@CNN) November 6, 2017
We will, of course, bring you further updates as this story develops.
(Via CBS News, Daily Beast, KSAT & Daily Mail)