WHITE SETTLEMENT (1080 KRLD) - The FBI and Department of Public Safety's Texas Rangers are leading the investigation of Sunday's shooting at a church in White Settlement.
During Sunday's service at West Freeway Church of Christ, they say someone stood up and shot and killed two people.
The church's security team then returned fire, killing the gunman.
"This poor man, I didn't know what his mental state was, but my heart goes out to his family because they have to live with this," says John Richardson, who was at the service.
Parishioners say the gunman stood up during Communion and started shooting. In addition to the two people killed, two others had minor injuries when people started ducking for cover.
One of the two killed was Tony Wallace, a deacon at the church.
"The guy just stood up from the pew, turned toward my dad and, I guess, he shot at the security guard," says Wallace's daughter, Tiffany.
Tiffany Wallace says her dad was a husband, father and grandfather. She says he was a registered nurse.
"How can someone so evil, the devil, step into a church and just do this?" she asked.
The FBI says investigators are still looking for a motive. The FBI says the suspect had an arrest record and connections to the area, but investigators have not released his identity.
FBI Special Agent in Charge Matthew DeSarno said they're working to identify the gunman's motive, adding that he is “relatively transient” but had roots in the area.
DeSarno also said the gunman had been arrested multiple times in the past but declined to give details.
It is not the first deadly shooting to take place at a church in Texas. In November 2017, Devin Patrick Kelley opened fire on the congregation at a church in Sutherland Springs, killing more than two dozen worshippers, before taking his own life. And in 1999, a gunman killed seven people in Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth before detonating an explosive device and killing himself.
Sunday's shooting in Texas was also the second attack on a religious gathering in the U.S. in less than 24 hours. On Saturday night, a man stabbed five people as they celebrated Hanukkah in an Orthodox Jewish community north of New York City.