Stephen Willeford, 55, and Johnnie Langerdorff, 27, are being hailed as heroes for stopping Devin Patrick Kelley, the man responsible for the worst ever mass shooting in Texas which left 26 dead.
Willeford confronted Kelley, 26, as he was leaving First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, wounding him, before he and Langendorff chased him as he fled. According to Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin said Willeford, a keen biker, had ‘grabbed his rifle and engaged the suspect’.
Willeford, who attends a different church, was first alerted to the shooting when his daughter called him saying there was a man in body armor gunning down churchgoers during mass.
Willeford then grabbed his gun and headed to Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church to confront the gunman.
via USA Today:
Johnnie Langendorff was driving in his truck near the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church on Sunday morning when he saw two men shooting at each other: the suspect and a member of the public.
“He was just a member of the community and he came to my vehicle in distress with his weapon,” Langendorff said of the member of the public, who was not named, who asked him to give chase to the alleged shooter Sunday. “He explained very quickly what happened. He got into the truck and I knew that it was time to go.”
“He got a little bit of a jump on us. We were doing about 95 (mph) down (Route) 539 going around traffic and everything. Eventually he came to a kind of a slowdown and after that we got within just a few feet of him and then he got off the road,” he said.
According to a military spokesman, Kelley served briefly in the Air Force but was court-martialed in 2012. Kelley, a married father of New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, dressed in black, tactical gear with a ballistics belt and an assault rifle, and began shooting.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said officials were releasing information on the shooting as they confirmed it, including the names of victims, who ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old.
26 people were killed in the Sutherland Springs, making it the deadliest mass shooting in Texas history.
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