Pastor Whose Daughter Died in Church Shooting to Run for Texas Senate

A Texan pastor whose daughter died in a 2017 church shooting announced he is running for the Texas Senate.

Pastor Frank Pomeroy of Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church will run as a Republican against Democrat Judith Zaffirini. The two will run for District 21, which has been consistently Democratic for years, according to the Washington Examiner.

“If I can bring civility and godliness and help stymie the downward spiraling of the great state of Texas, that’s what I’m choosing to try to do,” Pomeroy told his church on Sunday. “I feel as though that morality and integrity is disappearing rapidly, and I feel as though the direction Texas goes—if Texas falls, the country falls.”

On Nov. 5, 2017, Devin Kelley entered Sutherland Springs First Baptist Church and opened fire, killing 26 people. After the shooting, Kelley fled the scene. After a brief car chase, Kelley shot and killed himself.

One of those 26 victims was Pomeroy’s 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle. Pomeroy and his wife were out of town when the shooting occurred.

“We were a very close family,” Sherri, Pomeroy’s wife, says. “We ate together. We laughed together. We cried together. And we worshipped together. Now, most of our church family is gone. Our building is probably beyond repair. And the few of us left behind lost tragically.”

But Pomeroy and the rest of his congregation chose forgiveness over bitterness.

“The media is amazed that we are not angry, that we are not calling for this or that,” Pomeroy told congregants several days after the shooting. “Folks, we have the freedom to choose, and rather than choose darkness, as one young man did that day, I say we choose light.”