Texas Man, 43, Identified as Shooter Who Killed 2 During Church Service
Keith Thomas Kinnunen (Courtesy: River Oaks Police Department)
(IBEXNews) – The man who fatally shot two people at a Texas church on Sunday was identified as 43-year-old Keith Kinnunen, law enforcement sources told a local news outlet.
Officials have not publicly released his name, but NBC affiliate KXAS-TV said the gunman had a criminal record and lived in River Oaks, just a few miles east of where the shooting took place.
Kinnunen, who was killed within seconds of opening fire at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, had been arrested several times in the past decade.
He was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in 2009 and theft of property in 2013, according to the station. The River Oaks Police Department told the Daily News he was also charged with traffic violations in that city in 2015.
A year later, Kinnunen was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon in New Jersey, according to a 2016 news article on mycentraljersey.com.
The shooter, who was not familiar to churchgoers, was sitting alone near the back of the room when at least one woman felt suspicious about him. Isabel Arreola, a mother who was sitting in the pew in front of him, told local station CBS 11 that she knew “something’s not right” and mentioned him to her husband.
“I told him, ‘I don’t feel comfortable,’” she said. “I feel he’s like dressed in like a beard and that’s a wig and it looks so fake, so I just kind of kept looking back there.”
The gunman was also wearing what appeared to be a long, dark coat, according to a video obtained by the Daily News. He eventually got up, pulled out a shotgun and began firing, sending congregants screaming in fear.
“At that point I was just panicked and then we heard it go off and we’re just screaming, trying to get under the pews,” Arreola told the station.