Authorities say they have obtained and reviewed video footage of Sunday’s mass shooting in a South Texas church, according to ABC News.
A tweet from ABC News lists a Texas official as confirming video footage from inside the church.
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Authorities identified the gunman as Devin Patrick Kelley, a 26-year-old man from a suburb outside San Antonio. The shooting that killed 26 and injured 20 more First Baptist Church parishioners was not religiously or racially motivated, police said on Monday, adding that there was a “domestic situation” within Kelley’s family.
The suspect’s mother-in-law attended the church and has received threatening text messages from Kelley, authorities said.
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“The suspect’s mother-in-law attended this church,” Freeman Martin, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said during a news conference Monday morning. “We know that he had made threatening texts and we can’t go into detail into that domestic situation that is continuing to be vetted and thoroughly investigated.”
“This was not racially motivated, it wasn’t over religious beliefs, it was a domestic situation going on,” Martin added.
The suspected gunman was found dead in his vehicle after a high-speed chase from the church. Evidence suggests he may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Texas governor Greg Abbott said on Good Morning America Monday morning that he doesn’t believe the attack was a “random act of violence.”
“I don’t think this church was picked out at random. I think there was purpose and intent that Devin Kelley had in showing up at this particular location,” Abbott said.
Abbott also said that current gun laws should have prevented Kelley from purchasing guns.
“I can tell you that before he made this purchase, he tried to get a gun permit in the state of Texas and was denied that permit. And so under the current system of federal law, he should have prevented from being able to make this purchase,” Abbott said. “How that got through the cracks, I don’t have that information, but it’s important to understand these are the types of facts and issues that investigators continue to look into, and we will be able to have clear answers to those questions in the coming days.”
Among those killed in Sunday’s attack were “12-14” children, according to Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt, one of whom was the church’s pastor’s 14-year-old daughter. The ages of the deceased ranges from 19 months to 77 years old.
“Frank and I want to say thank you to all the outpouring of love for our family from family friends and complete strangers,” the wife of Pastor Frank Pomeroy said to reporters on Monday, going on to add that she and her husband don’t want their tragedy to “overshadow the other lives lost yesterday.”
“We lost more than Belle yesterday, and one thing that gives me a sliver of encouragement is the fact that Belle was surrounded yesterday by her church family that she loved fiercely, and vice versa,” she said.
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The gunman reportedly fired rounds from a semi-automatic rifle outside the church, then entered from the back of the church, fired all the way to the front of the church, and then fired on his way back out of the church. He had time to reload several times, Tackitt said.
Tackitt said that when he arrived on the scene, almost everyone was covered in blood.
“Wherever you walked in the church, there was death,” he said.
Authorities say the attack is the deadliest mass shooting in the state of Texas in history.
