Update: Shooter among the three dead in Texas church shooting

Screen capture of video feed taken moments before shooter (circled in red) was nuetralized.

Two parishioners and the gunman are dead after a shooting at a White Settlement church Sunday, officials say.

The shooting was reported just before 11 a.m. at the West Freeway Church of Christ in the 1900 block of South Las Vegas Trail.

During the service, a man got up, went to speak to a Deacon and then pulled out and fired a weapon at him and another gentleman in the back row. 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.

The two church members that were shot both died at the hospital, 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.

“There is evil in this world,” Farmer said. “Today is one sermon I’ll never preach… it’s called leaving a legacy and two men today left a legacy. But a congregation is going to build on that legacy.”

A livestream recording of the church’s Sunday morning service posted on YouTube, and since marked private, showed the shooting and the commotion that followed.

That video showed that in addition to the two members of the church’s security team, several other parishioners also drew weapons and were prepared to respond, including at least one woman.

“Today, evil walked boldly among us,” Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn said. “But let me remind you, good people raised up and stopped it before it got worse.”

Jeoff Williams, Department of Public Safety regional director for North Texas, said “heroic” parishioners stopped the gunman and “saved 242 other” lives.

“Unfortunately this country has seen so many of these that we’ve actually gotten used to it at this point,” Williams said. “It’s tragic and it’s a terrible situation, especially during the holiday season.

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.”

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.