Texas church shooting

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Two people are dead and another person is in critical condition Sunday after a reported shooting at a church in White Settlement, Texas.

Police responded to the reports of a shooting at West Freeway Church of Christ around 10:00 a.m. local time, authorities said. At least one person was found dead at the scene while another died as they were being transported to a hospital, according to NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

Mike Drivdahl of the Fort Worth Fire Department told NBC News Sunday that the situation was "stabilized" and there was no active threat to the community.

Police believe the suspected gunman is among the three patients involved in the shooting, Drivdahl said.

White Settlement is a suburb about 15 minutes west of downtown Fort Worth.

White Settlement received its name in the 1800s by Native Americans after non-Indigenous families began to settle in the area, according to the city's website.

WFAA-TV reported that the church shooting was captured on a live stream of Sunday’s worship service. In the video, which has since been taken down, a person stands and pulls out a weapon, then appears to fire twice before another person shoots back, according to WFAA.

Some congregants holding guns rushed toward the shooter, while others ducked under church pews, WFAA reported.

Apparently a "good guy with a gun" shot the assailant. Meaning, a private law abiding citizen with a gun shot the murderer before the murderer could kill more people.

My guess is that this incident will not be featured prominently in the MSM since such things when they involve a "good guy with a gun" go against the MSM narrative. We'll see.

During the service, a man went in and fired a weapon. Two church members, who were members of the parish's security team, returned fire and killed the shooter, who was pronounced dead at the scene, White Settlement Police Chief J.P. Bevering said.

Sr. Minister of the West Freeway Church of Christ Britt Farmer said the incident could have been much worse if the church didn't have its own security force.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised the two men who shot the gunman and pointed to two laws passed by the state legislature in recent years, one that allows people to carry concealed weapons inside churches and another that eliminated fees private institutions charge when the create their own security forces.

"This church had its own security team. They were well-trained," Patrick said. "The heroism today is unparalleled. This team responded quickly and within 6 seconds, the shooting was over.

In the video, someone thought to be the shooter gets up when the congregation greets each other, shakes hands and walks out talking to someone.

The shooter reenters the sanctuary, talks to a man in a suit and sits down. The person gets up again and talks to the same man, who points in a direction, and the shooter pulls out a firearm and shoots two people.

Another man pulls out a handgun and shoots the suspect. In the moments that follow, people can be heard screaming and church leaders ask that everyone sits down to wait for the police.

Multiple agencies, including the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the DPS, Texas Rangers and Fort Worth and White Settlement police were investigating the shooting.

"We are working very hard to find motive, to get to the bottom of what happened," said Matthew J. DeSarno Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Dallas Field Office.

DeSarno said the shooter, whose identity was not released Sunday, was "relatively transient," but had roots in the area.

He had been arrested multiple times in different municipalities, but was not on any watch lists, DeSarno said.

An assailant who stabbed five people attending a party at a Hasidic rabbi’s home in what New York’s governor called an act of domestic terrorism appears to have been acting alone, police said on Sunday.

We have nothing to indicate at this time that there were other people (involved), but that will be part of a very lengthy, very methodical and thorough investigation,” New York Police Department Commissioner Dermot Shea told reporters.

Speaking at a news conference alongside Mayor Bill de Blasio and other city leaders, Shea said that the suspect said “almost nothing” to the young officers who took him into custody at gunpoint after stopping him in Harlem. Shea declined to say whether Thomas had previously been on the department’s radar.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the attack in the small town of Monsey, which followed days of anti-Semitic incidents in the New York City area, was an act of domestic terrorism.

Thomas, from Greenwood Lake, New York, is due to return to court in the town of Ramapo on Jan. 3 after he was arraigned on Sunday on five counts of attempted murder and ordered held on $5 million bail.

According to Yossi Gestetner, co-founder of the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council, the attacker had his face partially covered with a scarf when he stabbed five people, two of whom were in critical condition.

“One of the rabbi’s children was also stabbed,” Gestetner told reporters.

One witness who was at the rabbi’s home said he began praying for his life when he saw the assailant remove a large knife from a case.

“It was about the size of a broomstick,” Aron Kohn told the New York Times.

Shea told Sunday’s news conference there had been a 21% increase in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the city this year.

The Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council posted the video on social media that showed the rabbi in Monsey and his followers continue their celebrations at the synagogue next door, after the attack in his home.

It gave a rough translation of the lyrics they sang: “The grace of God did not end and his mercy did not leave us.”

Did it say what the overall population of the church was? Two people and a gunman shot makes me wonder if it was a personal matter instead of a antisemetic issue.

The volunteer security member who fatally shot a gunman in a Texas church Sunday is a former reserve deputy sheriff who is a firearms instructor, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday.

The security member, identified as Jack Wilson, shot the gunman just seconds after the suspect killed two parishioners at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement on Sunday morning.

"My understanding is, he was a reserve deputy and had significant training, had his own shooting range, had taught other people how to shoot, had taught many people in this church how to be prepared," Paxton told reporters at a news conference. "He's not just responsible for his actions, which ultimately saved the lives of maybe hundreds of people, but he's also responsible for training hundreds in that church."
Officials had said Sunday night that multiple members of the church security team responded to the gunman. However, Paxton said Wilson was the only person who shot at the suspect, and he fired just once.

The two victims were members of the church security team, Paxton said. They were identified as Anton Wallace, 64, from Fort Worth, and Richard White, 67, from River Oaks, according to a statement released by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Wilson, who is running for county commissioner for Precinct 3 of Hood County, Texas, posted the statement on his campaign website.

Wilson served as a Hood County Reserve Deputy Sheriff from 1980 to 1986, according to his online biography. He also said he is a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement instructor as well as a License To Carry (LTC) instructor.

In an interview with CNN affiliate KTVT, Wilson said that he had "eyes" on the suspect from the time he walked into the room.

"After he shot (the two victims), he went and started towards the front of the sanctuary and that's when I was able to engage him, and I fired one round," he told KTVT.

The suspected gunman was identified on Monday as Keith Thomas Kinnunen, 43, from River Oaks, the Department of Public Safety said.

His sister, Amy Kinnunen, said Keith and their younger brother, Joel, had lived on the street for a time. She said Joel took his own life in 2009 and Sunday was Joel's birthday. She told CNN she last spoke to Keith in November.

She said her brother was living on the streets and bouncing between the homes of friends, though White Settlement is where he most recently lived. She described him as religious and said she didn't believe the shooting was a political act or one of revenge.

"Any problem that you had, he could give you a Bible scripture. He was very close to the Lord. I believe that is why he chose the church," she said.

Officials said the gunman had been arrested multiple times in different municipalities.

Paxton said it was his understanding the gunman was "more of a loner." He had been to the church several times before and was welcomed in, the attorney general said. Paxton said the gunman's death made it even more difficult to determine his motivation

White Settlement police Chief J.P. Bevering said the shooter entered West Freeway Church of Christ and sat down in the sanctuary just before 11 a.m. (12 p.m. ET) Sunday. He then stood, pulled out a shotgun and shot two people, Bevering said.

A video livestreamed from the church, seen by CNN, appears to show the shooting from start to finish. Lisa Farmer, the wife of the West Freeway Church of Christ Minister Britt Farmer, was not inside the church at the time of the shooting but told CNN the video shows the inside of the church building.

The shooter can be seen in the video seated in a pew wearing dark clothing before he gets up and approaches someone in a back corner and appears to talk to them. The individual gestures towards the center of the church before the shooter pulls out a shotgun and starts firing. As gunfire ensues, some parishioners are seen taking cover under their pews while others rush out of the sanctuary.

Another man with a handgun is seen in the video immediately engaging with the shooter and taking him down. Once the shooter is subdued, several other parishioners are seen approaching with their weapons drawn.

Farmer told CNN the shooting happened at the start of communion. "It was so chaotic," she said.
The church normally has around 280 people attending Sunday services, Farmer said. She said one of the men who died was a close friend "who would do anything for anybody that he could. Good guy. He's been there for us through thick and thin."

Isabel Arreola, who was sitting a few rows ahead of the shooter in the church, told CNN affiliate KTVT that when she saw him she knew "something's not right."

She told KTVT the shooter's appearance bothered her so much she pointed it out to her husband. "I told him I don't feel comfortable. I feel he's like dressed in like a beard and that's a wig. ... It looks so fake. ... I just kind of kept looking back there," she said.

"I saw him pull the gun out and I was just panicked and then we heard it go off and we're just screaming, you know, trying to get under the pews," Arreola told the affiliate. "What triggered him to come and do this? I just think about ... it could have been us. It just really breaks my heart to know people are gone."

It was a CHURCH. Not a synagogue (as per that recent NY mass stabbing). So why would "antisemitism" have anything to do with it?