Law enforcement officials work the scene of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) (Associated Press) 
 
 Law enforcement officials work the scene of a fatal shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2017. (Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) (Associated Press) 
 
 SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (AP) — A man dressed in black tactical-style gear and armed with an assault rifle opened fire inside a church in a small South Texas community on Sunday, killing 26 people and wounding about 20 in what the governor called the deadliest mass shooting in the state's history. The dead ranged in age from 5 to 72 years old. 
 
 Authorities didn't identify the attacker during a news conference Sunday night, but two other officials — one a U.S. official and one in law enforcement — identified him as Devin Kelley. They spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the investigation. 
 
 The U.S. official said Kelley lived in a San Antonio suburb and didn't appear to be linked to organized terrorist groups. Investigators were looking at social media posts Kelley made in the days before Sunday's attack, including one that appeared to show an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon. 
 
 An Air Force spokeswoman said Sunday night that Devin P. Kelley received a bad-conduct discharge from the Air Force for allegedly assaulting his spouse and child, and was sentenced to 12 months' confinement after a 2012 court-martial. Kelley served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge, spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said. 
 
 At the news conference, the attacker was described only as a white man in his 20s who was wearing black tactical gear and a ballistic vest when he pulled into a gas station across from the First Baptist Church around 11:20 a.m. 
 
 The gunman crossed the street and started firing a Ruger AR rifle at the church, said Freeman Martin, a regional director of the Texas Department of Safety, then continued firing after entering the white wood-frame building, where an 11 a.m. service was scheduled. As he left, the shooter was confronted by an armed resident who "grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect," Martin said. A short time later, the suspect was found dead in his vehicle at the county line. 
 
 Several weapons were found inside the vehicle and Martin said it was unclear if the attacker died of a self-inflicted wound or if he was shot by the resident who confronted him. He said investigators weren't ready to discuss a possible motive. Martin said 23 of the dead were found in the church, two were found outside and one died after being taken to a hospital. 
 
 Addressing the news conference, Gov. Greg Abbott called the attack the worst mass shooting in Texas history. 
 
 "There are no words to describe the pure evil that we witnessed in Sutherland Springs today," Abbott said. "Our hearts are heavy at the anguish in this small town, but in time of tragedy, we see the very best of Texas. May God comfort those who've lost a loved one, and may God heal the hurt in our communities." 
 
 Among those killed was the church pastor's 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle Pomeroy. Pastor Frank Pomeroy, and his wife, Sherri, were both out of town in two different states when the attack occurred, Sherri Pomeroy wrote in a text message to the AP. 
 
 "We lost our 14-year-old daughter today and many friends," she wrote. "Neither of us has made it back into town yet to personally see the devastation. I am at the charlotte airport trying to get home as soon as i can." 
 
 Federal law enforcement swarmed the small rural community of a few hundred residents 30 miles southeast of San Antonio after the attack, including ATF investigators and members of the FBI's evidence collection team. 
 
 At least 16 wounded were taken to hospitals, hospital officials said, including eight taken by medical helicopter to the Brooke Army Medical Center. Another eight victims were taken to Connally Memorial Medical Center, located in Floresville about 10 miles from the church, including four who were later transferred to University Hospital in San Antonio for higher-level care, said spokeswoman Megan Posey. 
 
 Hunter Green, 16, normally attends the church with his girlfriend but they skipped Sunday after a late date night. Attending a candlelight vigil hours later, he described the building as having only small exits on the side and in the back that would have made it very difficult to flee a shooter entering the front door. 
 
 "They wouldn't have had anywhere to go," Green said. 
 
 Alena Berlanga, a Floresville resident who was monitoring the chaos on a police scanner and in Facebook community groups, said everyone knows everyone else in the sparsely populated county. 
 
 "This is horrific for our tiny little tight-knit town," Berlanga said. "Everybody's going to be affected and everybody knows someone who's affected." 
 
 Regina Rodriguez, who arrived at the church a couple of hours after the shooting, walked up to the police barricade and hugged a person she was with. She said her father, 51-year-old Richard Rodriguez, attends the church every Sunday, and she hadn't been able to reach him. She said she feared the worst. 
 
 Church member Nick Uhlig, 34, wasn't at Sunday's service, but he said his cousins were at the church and that his family was told at least one of them, a woman with three children and pregnant with another, was among the dead. 
 
 "We just gathered to bury their grandfather on Thursday," he said, shaking his head. "This is the only church here. We have Bible study, men's Bible study, vacation Bible school. Somebody went in and started shooting." 
 
 President Donald Trump, who was in Japan, called the shooting an "act of evil" and said he was monitoring the situation. 
 
 "We're shocked. Shocked and dismayed," said state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, a Laredo Democrat whose district includes Sutherland Springs, a rural community known for its peanut festival, which was held last month. "It's especially shocking when it's such a small, serene area. These rural areas, they are so beautiful and so loving." 
 
 Later Sunday, two sheriff's vans were parked outside the gate of a cattle fence surrounding the address listed for Kelley on the rural, western outskirts of New Braunfels, north of San Antonio, preventing a group of waiting journalists from entering. Officials from the Comal County Sherriff's Office and the Texas Rangers declined to comment or say if they had raided his home. 
 
 Ryan Albers, 16, who lives across the road said he heard intensifying gunfire coming from that direction in recent days. 
 
 "It had to be coming from somewhere pretty close," Albers said. "It was definitely not just a shotgun or someone hunting. It was someone using automatic weapon fire." 
 
 The church has posted videos of its Sunday services on a YouTube channel, raising the possibility that the shooting was captured on video. 
 
 In a video of its Oct. 8 service, a congregant who spoke and read Scripture pointed to the Oct. 1 Las Vegas shooting a week earlier as evidence of the "wicked nature" of man. That shooting left 58 dead and more than 500 injured. 
 
 Until Sunday, the deadliest mass shooting in Texas had been a 1991 attack in Killeen, when a mentally disturbed man crashed his pickup truck through a restaurant window at lunchtime and started shooting people, killing 23 and injuring more than 20 others. 
 
 The University of Texas was the site of one of the most infamous mass shootings in American history, when U.S. Marine sniper Charles Whitman climbed the Austin campus' clock tower in 1966 and began firing on stunned people below, killing 13 and wounding nearly three dozen others. He had killed his wife and mother before heading to the tower, one victim died a week later and medical examiners eventually attributed a 17th death to Whitman in 2001. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Sadie Gurman and Eric Tucker in Washington, Nomaan Merchant in Houston, Will Weissert in Austin, Diana Heidgerd in Dallas, Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles and Paul J. Weber in New Braunfels, Texas, contributed to this report. ||||| SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas - The shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs that left 26 dead and more than 20 wounded Sunday morning was related to a “domestic situation,” officials said at a press conference Monday. 
 
 Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, of New Braunfels, has been identified as the shooter. Officials said he and his mother-in-law had a tumultuous relationship and said Kelley sent her a series of threatening text messages in days prior to the shooting. Kelley’s in-laws were members of the church but were not there at the time of the shooting. 
 
 Officials said the mass shooting was not racially or religiously motivated. 
 
 Who was Devin Patrick Kelley? Here's what we know about him 
 
 The church is located in the 500 block of 4th Street in the small, south Texas town about 40 miles east of San Antonio. 
 
 Here's everything we know about the Sutherland Springs church shooting 
 
 Kelley was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound following the shooting. His body was recovered about 10 miles away in Guadalupe County from inside the vehicle that he used to flee the scene of the shooting. 
 
 Officials said Kelley walked into the church around 11:20 a.m. Sunday and began shooting. He was armed with a Ruger AR 556 assault rifle, and dressed in black tactical gear and was wearing a ballistic vest. Officials later recovered two handguns from his vehicle, a Glock 9mm and a Ruger .22 pistol. Two of the guns were bought from an Academy Sports & Outdoors in San Antonio. Officials said he did not have a license to carry guns. 
 
 Officials said Monday evening that they've collected hundreds of shell casings and 15 magazines that hold 30 rounds each. 
 
 Texas church shooter fractured stepson's skull, pointed gun at wife, Air Force says 
 
 Among the 26 dead inside the church, ages range from just 18 months old to 77 years old. None of their names have been released officially, however First Baptist Church Pastor Frank Pomeroy said his 14-year-old daughter Annabelle Renee Pomeroy is among the deceased. Nick Uhlig told The Associated Press that his cousin Crystal Holcombe and her in-laws Karla and Bryan Holcombe died in Sunday’s attack. 
 
 The victims are being autopsied at the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office. Officials said their names will be released when their next of kin has been notified. 
 
 Sutherland Springs shooting is deadliest house of worship shooting in US history 
 
 Officials said of the 20 people inside the church who were wounded in the shooting, six are in stable condition, or have been released from the hospital, four are in serious condition and 10 are in critical condition. They are all being treated at San Antonio-area hospitals, including Brooke Army Medical Center and University Hospital. 
 
 A commanding general at BAMC says they received eight patients from the scene — six adults and two minors — all with “critical, significant, life-changing injuries.” He said seven of the patients arrived via ambulance and one was flown in a medical helicopter. 
 
 Reactions pour in following mass shooting at church in Sutherland Springs, Texas 
 
 Of the nine patients brought to University Hospital’s Level I trauma center, three children and three adults remain, a hospital spokesman said Monday morning. Their conditions range from serious to critical. Two adults were treated and released. One pediatric patient died. 
 
 Officials said after opening fire inside the church, Kelley was confronted by someone who lived near the church and gunfire was exchanged. Texas Department of Public Safety Regional Director Freeman Martin said Kelley was shot in his leg and torso by that person prior to getting into his vehicle to flee. 
 
 A look inside Sutherland Springs' First Baptist Church before mass shooting 
 
 The neighbor and another man from the Sutherland Springs community pursued Kelley for nearly a dozen miles before Kelley’s vehicle crashed. Kelley called his father while he was being chased and told him he had been shot and “didn’t think he was going to make it,” officials said at Monday’s press conference. 
 
 Who is Devin Patrick Kelley? 
 
 Kelley was previously a U.S. Air Force member who served in Logistics Readiness at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014. An Air Force spokesperson said he was court-martialed in 2012 for two counts of Article 128 UCMJ, Assault on his spouse and assault on their child. He received a bad conduct discharge, confinement for twelve months and a reduction to the grade of E-1. Officials said he had previously been charged with misdemeanor animal cruelty in east-central Colorado. 
 
 Court records in El Paso County indicate Devin Patrick Kelley was cited on Aug. 1, 2014, when he lived in a mobile home park near Colorado Springs. He was given a deferred probationary sentence and was ordered to pay $368 in restitution. The charge was dismissed in March 2016 after Kelley completed his sentence. 
 
 The Denver Post reports court records indicate someone was granted a protection order against Kelley on Jan. 15, 2015, also in El Paso County. 
 
 A statement issued by Schlitterbahn water park in New Braunfels said Kelley worked for the resort as an unarmed, night security guard for five and a half weeks during the summer before his employment was terminated. The statement indicated that all security guards must pass a criminal background check through the Texas Department of Public Safety. 
 
 Sutherland Springs shooter was fired from seasonal security guard job at Schlitterbahn 
 
 Claudia Varjabedian is a manager at the Summit Vacation Resort in New Braunfels. She told The Associated Press on Monday that Devin Patrick Kelley had been working there the past month and a half. 
 
 She says Kelley "seemed like a nice guy" and didn't give her any problems. She said he worked unarmed on his shift as the day security guard. 
 
 Texas church shooter passed background checks for gun purchases in San Antonio 
 
 This is a developing story. Stay with KSAT 12 and KSAT.com for more information as it becomes available. 
 
 Families in tears wait to see if their family and friends are safe. Praying for the safety of all those involved. pic.twitter.com/yjzK7lZJ1S — Max Massey (@MaxMasseyTV) November 5, 2017 
 
 Copyright 2017 by KSAT. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. ||||| Attendees make their way through the stands of a football stadium before a vigil for the First Baptist Church shooting victims Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in La Vernia, Texas. A man opened fire inside the... (Associated Press) 
 
 Attendees make their way through the stands of a football stadium before a vigil for the First Baptist Church shooting victims Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in La Vernia, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen and injuring others.... (Associated Press) 
 
 Attendees make their way through the stands of a football stadium before a vigil for the First Baptist Church shooting victims Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in La Vernia, Texas. A man opened fire inside the church in the small South Texas community on Sunday, killing more than two dozen and injuring others.... (Associated Press) Attendees make their way through the stands of a football stadium before a vigil for the First Baptist Church shooting victims Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in La Vernia, Texas. A man opened fire inside the... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Texas church massacre is providing a familiar frustration for law enforcement: FBI agents are unable to unlock the gunman's encrypted cellphone to learn what evidence it might hold. 
 
 But while heart-wrenching details of the rampage that left more than two dozen people dead might revive the debate over the balance of digital privacy rights and national security, it's not likely to prompt change anytime soon. 
 
 Congress has not shown a strong appetite for legislation that would force technology companies to help the government break into encrypted phones and computers. And the fiery public debate surrounding the FBI's legal fight with Apple Inc. has largely faded since federal authorities announced they were able to access a locked phone in a terror case without the help of the technology giant. 
 
 As a candidate, Donald Trump called on Americans to boycott Apple unless it helped the FBI hack into the phone, but he hasn't been as vocal as president. 
 
 Still, the issue re-emerged Tuesday, when Christopher Combs, the special agent in charge of the FBI's San Antonio division, said agents had been unable to get into the cell phone belonging to Devin Patrick Kelley, who slaughtered much of the congregation in the middle of a Sunday service. 
 
 "It highlights an issue you've all heard about before. With the advance of the technology and the phones and the encryption, law enforcement is increasingly not able to get into these phones," Combs told reporters. He did not provide further details other than saying the device was being flown to an FBI lab for analysis. "We're working very hard to get into that phone, and that will continue until we find an answer," Combs added. 
 
 Combs was telegraphing a longstanding frustration of the FBI, which claims encryption has stymied investigations of everything from sex crimes against children to drug cases, even if they obtain a warrant for the information. Agents have been unable to retrieve data from half the mobile devices — more than 6,900 phones, computers and tablets — that they tried to access in less than a year, FBI Director Christopher Wray said last month, wading into an issue that also vexed his predecessor, James Comey. Comey spoke before Congress and elsewhere about the bureau's inability to access digital devices. But the Obama White House never publicly supported legislation that would have forced technology companies to give the FBI a back door to encrypted information, leaving Comey's hands tied to propose a specific legislative fix. 
 
 Security experts generally believe such encryption backdoors are a terrible idea that could expose a vast amount of private, business and government data to hackers and spies. That's because those backdoor keys would work for bad guys as well as good guys — and the bad guys would almost immediately target them for theft, and might even be able to recreate them from scratch. 
 
 Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein took aim at Silicon Valley's methods for protecting privacy during a speech last month, saying Trump's Justice Department would be more aggressive in seeking information from technology companies. He took a harder line than his predecessors but stopped short of saying what specific steps the administration might take. 
 
 Washington has proven incapable of solving a problem that an honest conversation could fix, said David Hickton, a former U.S. attorney who now directs a cyberlaw institute at the University of Pittsburgh. 
 
 "We wait for a mass disaster to sharpen the discussion about this, when we should have been talking about it since San Bernardino," he said. "Reasonable people of good will could resolve this problem. I don't think it's dependent on the political wins or who is the FBI director. It's begging for a solution." 
 
 Even so, the facts of the church shooting may not make it the most powerful case against warrant-proof encryption. When the FBI took Apple to court in February 2016 to force it to unlock the San Bernardino shooter's phone, investigators believed the device held clues about whom the couple communicated with and where they may have traveled. 
 
 But Combs didn't say what investigators hoped to retrieve from Kelley's phone, and investigators already have ample information about his motive. Authorities in Texas say the church shooting was motivated by the gunman's family troubles, rather than terrorism, and investigators have not said whether they are seeking possible co-conspirators. 
 
 Investigators may have other means to get the information they seek. If the Texas gunman backed up his phone online, they can get a copy of that with a legal order — usually a warrant. They can also get warrants for any accounts he had at server-based internet services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. 
 
 In the California case, the FBI ultimately broke into the phone by paying an unidentified vendor for a hacking tool to access the phone without Apple's help, averting a court battle. It's unclear if the FBI could or would do that again; phone security varies widely by model, and Combs wouldn't say what the gunman had. 
 
 Former federal prosecutor Joseph DeMarco, who filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of groups that supported the Justice Department against Apple, said he was hopeful the case would spur fresh discussion. If not by itself, he said, the shooting could be one of several cases that prompt the Justice Department to take other technology companies to court. 
 
 "Eventually, the courts will rule on this or a legislative fix will be imposed," he said. "Eventually, the pressure will mount." 
 
 __ 
 
 Associated Press technology writer Matt O'Brien in Boston contributed to this report.
– First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, often recorded its church services, raising the disturbing possibility that Sunday's massacre was captured on video. Now the New York Times reports that such a gruesome video does indeed exist. One law enforcement official says it shows Devin Kelley firing continuously for about seven minutes, "methodically shooting his victims—including small children—in the head, execution-style," the Times notes. Other developments in the investigation: Encrypted phone: Authorities have Kelley's smartphone but have run into a familiar problem, reports the AP. They can't crack the encryption and open it. The FBI will try to gain access on its own, but the development is likely to renew the fight over whether companies such as Apple should provide some kind of back door authorities can use to bypass the encryption. It's not clear what type of phone Kelley had.