“The Texas church shooter who shot dead 26 people and injured 24 others was an ‘outcast’ who ‘preached his atheism’ online,” Jenny Stanton reports for The Daily Mail. “Former classmates say Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, who stormed First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs in Texas and opened fire on Sunday, was ‘creepy’, ‘crazy’ and ‘weird.'”
“Kelley walked into the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs on Sunday, dressed in black, tactical gear with a ballistics belt and an assault rifle, and began shooting, according to local law enforcement sources. Kelley of New Braunfels, a suburb of San Antonio, was shot by Stephen Willeford, 55, before he climbed in an SUV to flee the scene, a local resident told DailyMail.com,” Stanton reports. “Another local resident, Johnnie Langendorff, who had witnessed the confrontation refused to let the shooter get away. Both he and Willeford, a local plumber, jumped in his truck and gave chase… As they approached a sharp curve in the road, near the 307 and 539, Kelley appeared to lose control and his car swerved off the road. Kelley was already dead when they found him. It’s unclear if he committed suicide or died from his pursuers’ gunshots.”
“He reportedly purchased the Ruger AR-556 rifle in April last year from an Academy Sports & Outdoors store in San Antonio, according to CNN,” Stanton reports. “When he filled out the background check paperwork, he checked a box that indicated he didn’t have a past criminal history, an official told said, adding that he listed an address in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Texas Sheriff Joe Tackitt said that the shooter was not known to law enforcement… Local law enforcement say the gunman had a relatively clean criminal record, with just a traffic offenses in recent years.”
May God be w/ the people of Sutherland Springs, Texas. The FBI & law enforcement are on the scene. I am monitoring the situation from Japan.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2017
…Americans do what we do best: we pull together. We join hands. We lock arms and through the tears and the sadness, we stand strong… pic.twitter.com/qkCPgtKGkA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 6, 2017
“A local resident told DailyMail.com that 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 church goers,” Stanton reports. “He grabbed his gun and bravely headed down to confront the killer. The local said that while Willeford has no military experience, he is an excellent shot, and when he came face to face with Kelley, he didn’t hesitate; he shot in between Kelley’s body armor, hitting him in his side.”
Read more in the full article here.
Apple CEO Tim Cook offered his condolences to the victims and families of the Sutherland Springs mass murder:
Shocked and sorrowed by the heartbreaking news from Texas. Prayers for all those touched by violence today: victims, survivors, worshippers.
— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) November 5, 2017
“Kelley was once a member of the US Air Force, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. He served in logistics readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, starting in 2010,” CNN reports. “Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of Article 128 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, assault on his spouse and assault on their child, Stefanek said. Kelley received a bad conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, she said. The Air Force did not provide a date of the discharge.”
“President Donald Trump said Monday he believed the Texas church shooting was caused by a ‘mental health problem,’ and not because of a problem with domestic gun laws,” Sam Meredith reports for CNBC. “When asked whether U.S. gun control measures could have been the key to the Texas shooting, Trump replied, ‘Mental health is your problem here. This isn’t a guns situation,’ he said, before adding, ‘This is a mental health problem at the highest level. It’s a very, very sad event.'”
Speaking at a joint press conference in Tokyo, Japan, alongside Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump described the shooter as ‘a very deranged individual,'” Meredith reports. “‘Fortunately … somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction,’ Trump said at the press conference.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Tragic. We offer our prayers for and condolences to all those affected, as well.
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Cook tweets condolences for victims of Islamic terrorist attack in New York City – November 1, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook offers his condolences to the victims and families of the Las Vegas mass shooting – October 2, 2017
Apple CEO Cook tweets condolences for victims of Islamic terrorist attack in Barcelona – August 18, 2017
someone please tell this jackass that no one elected him to represent anyone.
I have news for you: he was appointed CEO by the Apple board of directors, to represent Apple. Luckily (for Apple), it didn’t require an election by the US population.
I have news for you: He was hand picked by Steve for the position and rubber stamped by the board, a mere technically…
A mere technically… what? (incomplete sentence).
So, why do you think Jobs “hand-picked” Cook? Was Cook his long-lost brother? Or his college room mate? Or anything? For that matter, how did Cook land the previous job at Compaq? Or at IBM before that?
Exactly how do you think a career works? I can tell you from my experience. When a company needs a new high-level executive, they usually don’t bother putting an ad in a local paper (or any other kind of paper). They hire talent recruiters and these ‘headhunter” go and recruit people. Another quite common way to recruit high-level executives, especially if the CEO is a strong figure (such as Jobs was), is for the CEO to personally reach out to various candidates. This is what Jobs did with Scully (he was young and inexperienced at the time, which explains his mistake), and he then did the same with Cook and several others when he returned to Apple.
The point here is something that you can’t seem to comprehend: Cook got a job offer from Steve, who had no personal connection with him before coming to work at Apple.
Once Cook started working at Apple, it was fairly clear to everyone in the company that he was going to be the most likely successor to Jobs, because he was the best candidate for that job.
Trump’s success was largely thanks to his father’s massively generous gift. It takes no genius to generate fortune from one million dollars (a million in the 80s would be worth $3 million today). Look at research done on lottery winners. About half of them squandered their winnings within a few years. But more importantly, the other half ended up preserving and growing their capital. No business school, no business training, ordinary people who won a lot of money and made it grow by using some common sense. There clearly isn’t anything extraordinary about Trump.
“There clearly isn’t anything extraordinary about [President] Trump.”
Why Donald J. Trump is extraordinary:
” target=”_new” rel=”nofollow”>the hottest first lady in U.S. history by far (Jackie Kennedy #2, Laura Bush #3)
• He is the 45th President of the United States of America
• He is the wealthiest president in U.S. history
• He is the first president without prior governmental or military experience; a true outsider
• He won the U.S. presidency in stunning political upset with nearly every major polling organization and the mainstream media aligned squarely against him
• He is married to
I could go on…
Why Donald J. Trump is extraordinary:
• In the first 10 months of his presidency, he set the record low for issuing rules, a pace at just one-twentieth of the Obama administration; overall regulatory volume has slowed to historically low levels
• The Trump administration proposed 6 million fewer hours of regulatory paperwork than the Obama administration did in its first 200 days
– Total final rule costs: $24.4 billion for Obama vs. $1.2 billion for Trump
– Annual final rule costs: $4.2 billion for Obama vs. $378 million for Trump
– Paperwork burden: 6,803,249 hours for Obama vs. 848,239 for Trump
I could go on…
Fair enough. I should have been a bit more specific, rather than expecting that readers will infer from context what I was referring to. All of your points are valid (to greater, or lesser extent).
My point was that his business success, a quality that so many people seem to consider his most significant qualification for his current job, is not quite so extraordinary after all.
Please link me directions to The Predrag Tower in Manhattan.
There isn’t one, since I didn’t have a rich father, and he didn’t give me a million dollars on my graduation from college. Nor did I win lottery.
Starting in NY as a foreigner with literally nothing but a few hundred dollars saved over a few years, I would say I did notably better than an average person, and significantly better than an average foreigner in NYC. At no point was I illegally in the US (not quite the case with many immigrants, who at some point extend their stay beyond the allowed time), and at no point was I dependant on anyone else but my own resources. Earned my own way, bought (and sold at profit) real estate, build a very healthy pension (still growing), put two kids through private school in NYC, put away for kids’ college, and am already eligible to retire with a six-figure lifetime pension (courtesy of a very healthy and generous pension plan).
Had I been given the money (like Trump was), though, it is quite likely that I’d be sitting in the Predrag Tower now. I probably wouldn’t be bothering with MDN, though.
Nor would you be tweeting your frustrations in the middle of the night, I imagine. Instead you’d enjoy a sound sleep, unencumbered by the endless slights you’d encountered during the day, because as a man at peace with himself you hadn’t actually incited or encountered any.
“My point was that his business success, a quality that so many people seem to consider his most significant qualification for his current job, is not quite so extraordinary after all.”
All businesses have up and downs so NO, it is truly extraordinary experience and groundbreaking. Denial and on your part changes NOTHING …
Yes, indeed there is a ton of good news from the Trump presidency the media is IGNORING and we all should feel good about.
But of course the resident leftists like TXuser and Predrag will NEVER ACKNOWLEDGE Trump’s accomplishments. They are still caught up in WMD’s in Iraq and daddy’s loan. I don’t expect them to move on anytime soon …
Now, that’s very funny. You keep bringing all this stuff up. I just keep correcting facts and bringing proper context.
Look, you have a rare (and probably last) opportunity to enjoy the political moment in your country where conservatives control all levers of power. This is likely to expire at the end of next year, but until then, you can wake up every morning with a smile on your face, knowing that your guys are in there. I’m genuinely happy for you, since you have been deprived of such state for too long (last time all three were republican was before Obama election). The majority is a bit too slim (hence no major legislative accomplishments, like health, wall, tax), but at least they are dismantling all the regulatory frameworks, which must be rewarding to see.
From the opposite point of view, this is truly disturbing, but not alarming. In all likelihood, In a year, the dismantling will likely end, and in three years, things will all be redone exactly the same way they were undone. USA has a demographic ticking bomb. Very soon, whites will no longer be a majority in the country (white Christians have long ceased to be majority). Republican platform as presented by Trump is quite unattractive to those non-whites (as well as Hispanics). If the party fails to acknowledge these changes, it will rapidly lose electorate. The current trifecta (controlling all branches) can induce complacency, which can only make things worse as the years roll around and all those non-white children become adults and start to vote.
American whites consider America their land. Time is rapidly approaching when their kind of America will simply be difficult to find. Perhaps partitioning the country into two distinct lands wasn’t such a bad idea after all…
You can fantasize, predict and make up your own truths all you want. Probably because that’s all you have left now that the Democratic Party is destroying itself from WITHIN and consistently losing elections, year after year in historic numbers …
American democracy has a remarkable, self-correcting resilience. This clown is the outcome of the people deciding that BOTH parties suck. I’ve been a life long Democrat, having no place else to really go, this clown will be the death of both parties, and it’s the people that want it that way, even if most his supporters don’t know it.
I can say this… history is ripe for a new leader, a hero, one would say. A Roosevelt (either one), a Lincoln, a Jefferson maybe.
Abraham Lincoln supposedly said “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” That’s America in a nutshell, it is. And don’t anybody try to tell me that Trump or any other officeholder, ever, doesn’t try to fool people. It’s what they perforce do.
I credit Trump with something. Reducing the Presidency of the US to a money making, revenge on enemies, total disregard for the Constitution, clown position making the US the joke of the world.
“total disregard for the Constitution” You are talking about Obama.
“clown position making the US the joke of the world.” Again, you are talking about Obama the first president next to Carter not feared by any world leader AND PAYS OFF DICTATORS. Unlike Trump whom some of the world leaders may not ALL like, but certainly RESPECT.
Reduce the government and make money? By all means and the sooner the better! Particularly after eight years of running up record debt. Making money is the only way to pay down the debt …
“There clearly isn’t anything extraordinary about Trump.”
There clearly isn’t anything extraordinary about Predrag …
Trump is clearly extraordinary. But so is Predrag, and so is GoeB, and botvinnik, and Sean, and I love you all and wish you would stop beating upon each other. There has to be some sword of humanity that all could place their hands upon the haft, one above the other, and declare mutual fealty. It can’t be just woman’s folly, that hopes for commonality in a forum dedicated specifically to Mac.
You engage in personal attacks, then expect hellfire in return.
My favorites are those expressed as opinion MASQUERADING as FACT. That’s when the freshest and bestest ammo is used.
But you make a sincere PEACEFUL POINT … 🌿
Steve Jobs was seriously ill and on meds, too.
Seems no one can comprehend the obvious, Cook keeps tweeting over every incident in the country, no other CEO that I am aware of does this, does this somehow make Cook better than everyone else??
Cook does not hold a political office in which he can do anything about any incident that he feels to tweet about it. He can perhaps suggest to spend some of Apple’s money, but the few million Apple has donated to various events, while helpful to be sure, is a drop in the bucket of the need in many cases, and If you get down to it, Apple could do a lot more..
I think it goes without saying most people are appalled and saddened by this tragedy, However there are also people that are happy that it happened, they think they can disarm good American’s so that more can be readily killed by predators.. It as another good armed American that stopped the carnage.
There are also people that dislike Christians, while Christian’s are never perfect most do more good with their faith than any of those people dissing people’s Christian faith.
If Cook attracts such hatred for publicly using Twitter to express condolences, why doesn’t the jackass at 1600 Pennsylvania receive any critique from the trolls on this site?
https://twitter.com/WeSupport45/status/927609668641394688
You might as well just have it saved as a form letter at this point.
“Prayers and condolences to the victims of the mass shooting in [_______].”
The second-largest concentration of Apple employees in North America lives and works less than a hundred miles from Sutherland Springs. Perhaps this shooting seems irrelevant to you, since you can’t blame it on Islamic terrorism, but I can assure you that angry white guy terrorism is pretty scary for those of us who live in Texas.
So you are saying “angry white guy terrorism” is more scary in your neighborhood than Islamic terrorism?
No, as we have seen with Islamic terrorism it happens worldwide to do anything to take lives of as many people as possible and their own. That is really scary and pales by comparison …
Yes, GoeB, of course I am saying that.
In the last month or so, one angry white guy killed 58 people in Las Vegas and another killed 26 in Texas. That was in just two incidents; there were others. During that same period, a Muslim killed 8 people in New York. I bet we’d have heard if there were any other recent cases.
So, we were all at over 10X more risk of being killed by an angry white guy than by a Muslim. I find that scary. Don’t you?
The nature of people who commit mass-casualty crimes—regardless of their religion or ethnic origin—is that they try to take the lives of as many people as possible. When a white guy kills you, you are just as dead as if Islamic terrorism gets you. How does the less likely form of death “pale by comparison” with respect to the more likely?
Angry, lying, mentally disturbed, child abusing, wife bearing, animal abusing, degenerate leftist librard you mean.
What took him so long to offer his condolences?
President Trump beat him to it by over an hour. Guess Timmy Boy doesn’t care as much.
Oh , wait, white Texan Christians killed. I get it now.
Most absurd.
POTUS is surrounded by staff that, even if they are totally oblivious of such events, get immediately notified when they happen, and notify POTUS.
And what does Cook do on a Sunday? I was watching NY Marathon and didn’t see the news until later in the evening.
Unless you are trying to be sarcastic…
Tim has been picking up the same Twitter habit, most likely inspired by President Trump and that’s a good thing. Better late than never.
I wish he would Tweet SUPPORT for the tax bill as well and make a promise to repatriate the offshore cash and INVEST in the U.S.
Why he will never go there? That’s easy. As a liberal SJW he doesn’t have the will to go against the snowflakes in Apple or his party …
So then, I guess it’s now okay to tweet a breakup? /s
Deep felt sympathies for the victims and families of this brutal attack.
Thanks for the sympathies, Road Warrior. When this happened yesterday, I was 35 miles away in New Braunfels, the shooter’s hometown.
I’m afraid Americans are getting blasé about this sort of thing. I live in Mass-Casualty Alley, almost exactly halfway between Mt. Carmel, Waco (86 dead) and Sutherland Springs (26 dead). Even closer were the Killeen Luby’s (23 dead), the UT Tower (18 dead), Ft. Hood (13 dead), and the Waco Biker Shootout (9 dead). I can’t even count all the smaller multiple murders.
For those keeping count, that is 175 deaths, every one of which was caused by someone born in the United States of America. For those keeping score, 13 were perpetrated by someone who grew up in a Muslim household and 162 by native-born Christians.
Despite all that, I still regularly encounter people who don’t think that travel to Europe would be safe!
Fact One: More than twice as many people die from auto accidents EVERY YEAR. They pass a driver’s test, are licensed, vehicle inspected and carry insurance on a yearly basis.
Fact Two: The overwhelming majority of gun deaths in the U.S. are self-inflicted suicides, not mass shootings that get ALL the media attention.
That said, prayers to the victims and their families …
GeoB, I kinda like you, so I’m not going to speak to you personally.
The only relevant and pertinent fact… THESE WERE ACTS OF HATE!!! Not accidents, not the victim’s mental illness. The perpetrators had HATE, as motive, premeditated the action and had opportunity.
Kinda puzzling how you prefaced your post, no matter.
I totally agree with you. The guy had a history of violence and this was a conscious act of pure murder …
Well then the examples you brought up before are not applicable here. That’s why I prefaced the way I did. It could have been construed that way.
I thank you as well for sharing your sentiments and insight. The violence of these tragedies must hit the locals quite hard. I hope that one day humanity can put these senseless deaths behind us.
Sympathies duly noted. But just a day in the life of a “terrorist nation” …
isn’t about time for your three hour coffee break, mid-level state employee TxUser?
PS: Are the good taxpayers of Texas paying you to post libtard drivel on the internet during office hours?
Texas Workforce Commission Fraud and Program Abuse Hotline 800-252-3642 for individuals who wish to report suspected fraud, waste, or program abuse.
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/reporting-fraud#hotlineInvestigationOfFraudInPrograms
Actually, botvinnik, I’m a retired prosecutor, which is why I know that it is a criminal offense to solicit false reports to a government agency.
Don’t plan on visiting Texas anytime soon.
I’m in Texas right now, you piece of shït.
Most shit in Texas comes fromthe south end of northbound steer. But now they have bot to clean up after. So sorry to the Lone Star state.
Botty… your meds….
Prosecutor? Where and when?
Do you honestly expect me to identify myself when somebody just threatened me online? I’m sure that MDN’s hosting service, if not MDN itself, would prefer not to be a party to further cyberbullying. Since I practiced law for thirty years, I do know how to file suit. I may not be able to find botvinnik for service of process, but I can certainly find them.
Threatened? What’s the matter, snowflake? You can give it but you can’t take it, can you? Oh, dear, TxUser has the vapors?
TxUser gonna file suit that his feelings were hurt. Lotsa luck with that, counselor. May be you should just go to your safe space and chill.
If Democrats and libtards didn’t carry guns homicide rates would drop 90%.
Trump is a useless sack of s*~t.
Donald J. Trump: The Man Who Saved America.
By tweeting?
And that is precisely how he circumvents the lying media.
MAGA
Sure. Keep believing that, covfefe.
At least The Trump is a convenient litmus test for delusional. Witness botty here pretending The Trump has saved anything but his own ca$h and of course mirrors.
Channeling Devin Kelley?
A human doesn’t have to be a terrorist to be out of their frickin’ mind.
I wish mankind would get supremely serious about our own psychology. Apparently, the topic is too scary for us to explore and address with adequate sanity. Meanwhile, we pretend to create ‘Artificial Intelligence’. Laugh at us, those of the future.
Way too complex for this forum. The psychological health is just scary right now as mankind has developed sophisticated drugs and media that twist the mind beyond reason.
I fear the constitution is in dire need of modernization otherwise the extremists will tear the nation apart from within. Look at these forums–several people have taken it upon themselves to act as propagandists for Trumpian winner take all divisionism while slinging insults whenever anyone questions motive or long term repurcussions of the bad ideas the current administration keeps pushing. Such politics today are a lethal poison.
On one hand you have people who demand uninhibited freedom except if they find a hebrew text saying to the contrary. Then on the opposite side you have paranoid people addicted to crisis news demanding more military and police overreach. Nobody is standing up for reponsible proactive solutions to anything. Even less are any suggestions for fiscal responsibility. Maybe it is time for Cook to hire botty to run his campaign using Clinton’s used Mac email servers and Koch funding. This would solve everything as well as the Missouri Compromise, right?
Who knew you could be so eloquent on subjects not related to tech? Must be an English teacher…
Well sad Paul.
Well said…
^&^*^(&# WordPress
Banning responsible gun owners for libtard terrorists is like blaming farmers for obesity or taking cars from sober drivers because of alcohol abusers.
I very much appreciate your technical scepticism about the state of the art of artificial intelligence. As always in corporama and academia, beware the hype! Still, it’s emerging. – Goofle and Microshaft must not be given a market advantage in anything that would allow them to take over the world. They would if they could, you know. They couldn’t help themselves. Hardly anyone who’s been handed massive power has behaved sensibly and humanely, and corporations are not even people, but rather pseudointelligent conglomerates driven by macroeconomic forces, oblivious to ethics except as constraints to their rapacity. What I just said is in the newspapers every day: overturn government regulations and let free enterprise determine our future. And that’s just it, isn’t it? You and I are uncertain that would work, because of, uh, ALL past experience.
There’s cynicism. Then there’s practicality. Thank you! 😎
The insights of neuroscience and evolutionary psychology are so new that they have not percolated through the educational system. Until they do, we will all continue to suffer from the handicaps of our god-inflicted biases, and behave exactly as prescientific tribes behaved. It took 350 years for the Vatican to pardon Galileo. It took 50 years for the New York Times to retract their claim that space flight was impossible. One hopes it will take fewer generations for society to admit that their instincts consistently lead them to wrong conclusions because those instincts were designed for a different kind of jungle than the one we now unfortunately inhabit.
It’s disorienting to realize we still live in something of a dark age. But then, ‘perspective is everything’ and we notice how far we’ve come. No if only we could continue to sanely go farther without the nightmares of the past constantly trying to drag us back into the more mucky mire.