White Settlement Church Shooting
Link to original article here: https://www.stayingalive.info/htdocs/newsletter/htdocs/ChrisCorner/2020-01-11-privateer.htm
So Texas has provided another case of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun who was shooting up a church. This shooting happened during a Sunday service on December 29 at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, a suburb of Fort Worth.
It was just over two years after the shooting at the First Baptist Church at Sutherland Springs, a small community about 35 miles from San Antonio. There the killer was stopped by Stephen Willeford, a 55-year-old resident who lived a block from the church. Unfortunately he was not able to stop the shooter until the latter had killed 26 members of the congregation and wounded more.
In the White Settlement church shooting, the outcome would be very different. According to news reports and a video released by police, the 43-year-old gunman entered the church wearing a false beard and a wig and dressed in a long coat. He immediately drew suspicion from members of the church’s volunteer security team. They made sure he was being recorded by the church’s video and audio system. Partway through the service, the gunman stood up and spoke to Deacon Tony Wallace. He stepped back and pulled a short barreled 12-gauge shotgun with a pistol grip from under his coat.
Richard White, a member of the security team, was sitting a few feet away. On seeing the gun, he stood up and drew his handgun. He appeared from the tape that he fumbled drawing the gun from under his coat. It took three seconds from the time the gunman produced the shotgun to when he fired at White mortally wounding him. The killer turned on Wallace and shot him at almost point blank range. Wallace did not survive.
Meanwhile Jack Wilson, the 71-year-old security team leader, had drawn his gun and fired one shot hitting the gunman in the head killing him. According to the tape, it took six seconds from the time the killer produced the shotgun to when Wilson fired the shot that took him down.
Wilson said he had to pause before shooting because there were members of the congregation still standing between him and the killer and that was why he chose to take a head shot. The range was about 15 yards.
After the killer went down, Wilson advanced on him and picked up the shotgun from beside the killer’s body. After the gunman went down, about half a dozen members of the security team drew their guns.
There is no doubt that the presence of the volunteer security team and Jack Wilson in particular saved several lives. The shotgun would not have held more than five or six rounds and it is slow to reload. Even several unarmed parishioners could have taken him down as he was trying to reload.
At Sutherland Springs, the gunman used an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle with many magazines. Stephen Willeford worked shifts at a San Antonio hospital and was in bed when the shooting started. One of his daughters alerted him to what was happening. Unlike the team at White Settlement, he was unprepared. He had to get his AR-15 and an empty magazine from his gun safe. His ammunition was in a different room. He started to load the magazine but only managed to fill it with eight rounds before running towards the church in bare feet.
“I was just complacent,” he said. “I thought Sutherland Springs; nothing’s ever going to happen here.”
As Willeford approached the church, the gunman came out and started shooting at him with a handgun. Willeford returned fire, wounding the killer twice. The shooter got into his SUV and took off. Willeford and Johnnie Langendorff chased the killer in the latter’s pickup for about 10 miles before the gunman crashed his SUV and committed suicide. During the chase, Langendorff was on his phone talking to the police dispatcher while Willeford was checking his rifle to find he had only two rounds left.
While both incidents were very different, they both involved a good guy taking down a bad guy who had just killed innocent citizens. Both men were more than half a century old, both were firearms’ instructors and both put their lives on the line to stop mass shootings. Both men were hailed as heroes but both argued they were not heroes but had just done what needed to be done.
While some churches prior to the Sutherland Springs shooting had volunteer armed security teams, it was that incident that persuaded many smaller churches to develop their own volunteer security teams.
Wilson said the West Freeway Church of Christ started its security team after the Sutherland Springs shooting. He said that incident had an impact on the decision to start their own.
