Good Samaritan Who Chased Shooter: It Was ‘Right Thing’ to Do

When gunfire erupted in a small-town Texas church on Sunday, two good Samaritans stepped in to end the shooter’s spree.

Johnnie Lagendorff, a Texan with a longhorn bull neck tattoo that tucks in just behind his ears, was one of the men who pursued shooter Devin Kelley on Sunday after Kelley shot and killed at least 26 people.

As Langendorff drove past First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, he saw the gunman exchanging fire with an unidentified man.

Langendorff pulled over and stepped in.

“I did what I thought I needed to do,” Langendorff told NBC News affiliate News 4 San Antonio. “They said there was a shooting. I pursued and I just did what I thought was the right thing.”

Kelley, 26, had just opened fire inside the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs. There were 26 people he killed and an additional 19 people hospitalized.

Related: Texas Church Shooting: More Than Two Dozen Parishioners Killed

Kelley dressed in all black tactical gear as he began his spree armed with a “Ruger AR assault-type rifle,” according to Freeman Martin, a regional director with the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Johnnie Langendorff, who pursued the suspect of the Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church church shooting, waits to be picked up from the scene where the suspect died on Nov. 5, 2017. William Luther / San Antonio Express via Zuma Press

After the shooting began, the unidentified man stepped in, “grabbed his rifle and engaged that suspect,” according to Martin. Kelley dropped his rifle and fled, which led the two to pursue him.

As law enforcement responded, the suspect ran off the road in his car at the Wilson-Guadalupe county line and crashed, Martin said. The suspect was found dead in the vehicle.

Sunday night, when Langendorff returned to the crash site to retrieve his vehicle, he said he was unaware of the additional weapons later found in Kelley’s car.