Watch the video in the tweet below. It zooms on the surveillance video from yesterday’s shooting at the West Freeway Church of Christ and identifies seven people who were armed in the congregation (there were undoubtedly more there who were out of the camera’s field of view).
Watch as seven (!!!) Texans jump to action with their guns as a psycho opens fire on their congregation with a shotgun.
pic.twitter.com/VH1ibzgRzD— Caleb Hull 🎅🏻🎁 (@CalebJHull) December 30, 2019
That includes Jack Wilson, the 71-year-old deacon who drew his pistol and shot the shooter in the head, ending the threat. He posted this on his Facebook page:
In other words, there was no shortage of good guys with guns in that church yesterday. Something that unquestionably saved lives and was acknowledged by responding law enforcement and politicians.
It cannot be overstated how important it is that everyone recognize what took place here today. The citizens who were inside that church undoubtedly saved 242 other parishioners.
And that might get swept aside in this whole conversation about active shooter response and God knows law enforcement has done a whole bunch of work to make our response better. We needed to do that.
But we’re starting to find out that, as the Lt. Governor mentioned, over half of these [mass shootings] are over before we get there. And I want to commend the chief and his department. Their response was…it’s never gonna get faster than that. It was miraculous.
So the true heroes in this are the people who were sitting in those pews today and responded — the immediate responders — that saved their fellow citizens. I just can’t overstate how critical that is for everyone to recognize.
It is truly heroic and the citizens of this community have a lot to be proud of for their response.
– Jeff Williams, Regional Director of the Texas Department of Public Safety