Xi sends condolences on massacre

Trump praises a gun-owner who opened fire to stop the shooter

President Xi Jinping has sent condolences to his US counterpart, Donald Trump, on a deadly shooting at a Texas church which left 26 people dead and injured at least 20.

In his message, Xi expressed his deep sorrow to the innocent victims, extended sincere sympathy to those injured and the families of the victims, and wished the injured people to recover soon.

Ten people remained in critical condition a day after Devin Patrick Kelley, a 26-year-old private security guard, burst into the rural church during Sunday morning services and sprayed bullets at the congregation.

The Pentagon said it would probe why the Air Force failed to enter a domestic violence conviction into a database that could have prohibited Kelley from purchasing weapons, such as the AR-15 rifle and two handguns he had in his possession.

Investigators were focusing on reports that Kelley had sent threatening text messages to his mother-in-law, who regularly attended the church but was not there during the assault.

Victims of the massacre included an unborn baby, an 18-month-old toddler, eight members of a single family, and reportedly the gunman's grandmother-in-law.

The authorities said Kelley may have died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head after using his car to flee the church in Sutherland Springs, a rural community of rolling hills and ranches of nearly 400 people near San Antonio.

On a visit to South Korea, US President Donald Trump has praised a gun-owner who opened fire in an effort to stop the killer.

Two men - Stephen Willeford, 55, and Johnnie Langendorff, 27 - were lauded as heroes for confronting Kelley after he mowed down nearly 50 churchgoers with gunfire.

Willeford grabbed his own AR-15 rifle and shot and wounded Kelley as he emerged from the church and headed for his car.

Willeford then flagged down a passing pickup truck driven by Langendorff and they pursued Kelley at high speed until he crashed his vehicle into a field.

Trump said that if the "very brave" Willeford had not been armed, "instead of having 26 dead, you would have had hundreds more dead".

'No difference'

Stricter background checks, however, would have made "no difference" in averting the tragedy, he said.

Trump earlier said the latest shooting is a "mental health problem at the highest level". Sunday's carnage came five weeks after the worst gun massacre in modern US history, when a retired accountant opened fire on a music concert in Las Vegas, killing 58 people.

"This was not racially motivated, it wasn't over religious beliefs," Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

"There was a domestic situation going on with the family and in-laws. ... We know that he expressed anger toward his mother-in-law."

Governor Greg Abbott said Kelley was "a man who had some mental health issues apparently long before this".

According to the Air Force, Kelley served at a base in New Mexico starting in 2010 before being court-martialed in 2012.

He was sentenced to 12 months in confinement and received a "bad conduct" discharge in 2014, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

China Daily - Afp - Xinhua

(China Daily 11/08/2017 page11)