New details have emerged in the mass church shooting in Texas yesterday.
Early accounts of the event had a local citizen tackling Devin Kelley as he exited the church.
But in the hours since those accounts have been corrected to reflect that the local citizen, a plumber with no prior military training, grabbed his rifle as soon as he heard reports of the shots and engaged Kelley.
That plumber, Stephen Willeford, is being hailed as a hero for squeezing off a precision shot that hit Kelley in a gap between his armor.
Willeford then jumped into the truck of another man who arrived at the scene with whom he chased down Kelley reaching speeds of nearly 100 mph.
A local sheriff is reporting that Kelley ultimately died of a self-inflicted gunshot after crashing his vehicle.
It’s reasonable to assume that, had Willeford not responded, Kelley may have had time to target additional parishioners outside the church before police arrived on the scene.
Here’s more from NY Post…
The man hailed as a hero for confronting the Texas mass shooter during his rampage is a sharpshooting plumber with no military background — who hit the gunman through a gap in his body armor, according to a report.
Stephen Willeford managed to shoot Devin Kelley before jumping in another man’s truck and chasing him down, the Daily Mail reported.
Texas Department of Public Safety chief Freeman Martin said Willeford “grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect” after Kelley left the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where he opened fire with an assault rifle and killed 26 people.
An area resident told the paper that Willeford, an avid biker who attends another church, learned about the shooting when his daughter called to say a man clad in body armor was shooting worshipers.
The local said that although Willeford has no military background, he didn’t hesitate when he came face to face with the suspect — and managed to squeeze off a round that struck the gunman, who had dropped his Ruger AR-15 variant.
Willeford jumped into a truck driven by another local, Johnnie Langendorff, who witnessed the confrontation, and the pair gave chase.
Langendorff later told reporters about the dramatic pursuit.
“I pulled up to the intersection where the shooting happened and I saw two men exchanging gunfire, the other being a citizen of the community,” he said.
“The shooter of the church had taken off, fled in his vehicle, and the other gentleman came and he said, ‘We need to pursue him,’ that he just shot up the church. So that’s what I did. I just acted.”
