A pastor was killed and two people were injured after a shooting at an East Texas church on Sunday, authorities said.

The Smith County Sheriff’s Office said they responded to a shooting at Starrville Methodist Church, about 15 miles northeast of Tyler, at around 9:20 a.m. Arriving deputies found two people shot.

According to the department, there were no services at the time of the shooting.

Smith County Sheriff Larry Smith said the suspected shooter had been involved in a pursuit on Saturday night that lasted about two hours. Smith did not say why authorities were chasing him.

On Sunday morning, the pastor of Starrville Methodist Church confronted the suspect who apparently hid in the church’s bathroom, according to Smith.

The sheriff said the pastor drew his gun and ordered the suspect to stop but the suspect was able to disarm him. The pastor and another person were then shot before the suspect allegedly stole the pastor’s vehicle and fled the scene, Smith said. A third person was injured in a fall.

The pastor was pronounced dead, while the other person was taken to a hospital for surgery. The other person’s condition is unknown at this time.

Smith said the suspect was eventually arrested in Harrison County. The suspect was also taken to a hospital to treat gunshot wounds in his hand, Smith said. It is unclear how he was shot.

The identities of the victims and the suspect have not yet been released.

#UPDATE: The suspect was hiding in the bathroom of Starrville Methodist Church when confronted by the armed pastor. The suspect disarmed the pastor, shot and killed him before stealing the pastor’s car, officials say. The suspect, a 21-year-old Black male, has been arrested. I pic.twitter.com/hVxqqMSGe4

— Reagan Roy-Young (@reaganroy) January 3, 2021

Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement on the incident:

“Our hearts are with the victims and the families of those killed or injured in this terrible tragedy. I am grateful for the law enforcement officers who apprehended the suspect, and I ask Texans to join Cecilia and me in praying for those affected by this horrific shooting. The State of Texas is working closely with first responders and local officials to ensure that justice is served and that the Starrville community has the resources it needs during this time.”

Further details on the shooting were not immediately released as authorities continue to investigate.

A tweet from the scene showed the police response at the church:

Here’s the scene of a #shooting in which the pastor of Starrville Methodist Church in #Winona was killed when he confronted a suspect who was hiding in the church’s bathroom following a car chase Saturday night. #Texas #TXNews #TexasNews pic.twitter.com/8S8zcBNln4

— Reagan Roy-Young (@reaganroy) January 3, 2021

Like the Coronavirus, it came from overseas, arriving, initially, unnoticed. When it was finally, belatedly discovered, the outrage (for a few days at least) was epic.

“This is nothing short of a virtual invasion by the Russians into critical accounts of our federal government,” said Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

Republican Senator Mitt Romney called it “an extraordinary invasion of our cyberspace.”

The Russians, it’s believed, hacked into the software of a company called SolarWinds, causing them to push out malicious updates – call it a “cyber virus” – infecting the computer systems of more than 18,000 private and government customers. Almost a cyber pandemic.

As former Bush Administration official Theresa Payton told Fox News, “This vulnerability allowed these nefarious cyber operatives to actually create what we refer to in the industry as ‘God access’ or a ‘God door,’ giving them basically any rights to do anything they want to in stealth mode.”

Like its medical counterpart, a cyber virus spreads through bad hygiene. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper called the security breach “a huge intelligence failure.”

Democratic Rep. Jason Crow called the hack “breathtaking,” and referred to it as “our modern-day ‘Cyber Pearl Harbor.'”

So, which is it? Pearl Harbor, which drew the United States into World War II? Or just a massive espionage operation, similar to those conducted by the United States around the world?

With nothing much to see, media coverage faded. But the experts remain seriously concerned.

“This is not just about an espionage attack,” said Richard Clarke. “This is about something called preparation of the battlefield, where they’re now able, in a time of crisis, to eat the software in thousands of U.S. companies.”

More than 20 years ago, Clarke was the nation’s first cyber czar, working initially in the Clinton White House and then under George W. Bush. These days, Clarke is chairman of Good Harbor, a cybersecurity consulting company.

“Sunday Morning” senior correspondent Ted Koppel asked Clarke, “When you hear people talk about this as being purely an intelligence operation, you accept that?”

“No, I don’t,” he replied. “Now, what the Russians have known is they’ve suddenly gotten into thousands of American sites and placed additional backdoors in once they got in. So, even if we discover a backdoor that they have placed in a critical network, they’ve probably placed five or six, and we’ll never find them all.

“That means they are in the position, in the crisis, to walk right into lots of important American networks, both government and private sector, and then to wipe out the software on them, to shut the network down,” Clarke said.

“We are now in a moment of history where there is a constant, escalating, short-of-war cyber-conflict underway every single day,” said David Sanger, national security correspondent for The New York Times.

Cyber warfare is, to borrow the title of his book and the HBO documentary based on that book, “The Perfect Weapon.” In the documentary, cyber is described as a “most inexpensive, highly-destructive, highly-deniable weapon.”

Koppel asked, “Is there a really visible line between cyber intelligence and cyber warfare?”

“Yes, I think there is,” Sanger replied. “If I went into your computer system, Ted, just to read your email, that’s pure espionage. But what people discovered over time, was that the same computer code that enabled you to break into somebody’s system would also enable you to manipulate that system.

“So, once you were inside, if you had the right access, you could do all kinds of things. If the network was connected to an electric power grid, to a gas pipeline, to a water distribution system, to a nuclear centrifuge plant, you might be able to manipulate the data and cause havoc in those systems. And that’s much more than mere espionage.”

These days Keith alexander is CEO of the IronNet Cybersecurity company; but when he retired as a four-star Army general, Alexander ran the National Security Agency, where he used to direct intelligence operations against America’s adversaries.

Koppel wondered what Alexander thought the Russians are doing: “Isn’t it reasonable in a situation like this to assume the worst? That they were planting, in effect, cyber landmines which can be activated at some future point?”

“I think the real objective is to gain information: what Treasury’s thinking, what Commerce is thinking, what Homeland Security’s thinking, what State Department does,” Alexander said. “They want insights to what’s going on in our country.”

“You still haven’t responded directly to my suggestion that it could also include cyber landmines which could be activated later on,” Koppel said.

“Well, that’s a good point,” Alexander replied. “Having said that, there has been no insights yet as to them actually setting landmines as much as gathering information. So, I would say this: think of this as the recon phase. They would set up those backdoors so that they have a way of getting in and out. And then if they had that, you don’t necessarily have to set up the landmines at that time; you would probably keep your information on those networks down low so that it’s not detectable, and just have the backdoor capability to get in, and then do something when the need arises.”

Clarke said, “What has occurred is, again, preparation of the battlefield. There’s not been a lot of damage because of SolarWinds.  Maybe some information was stolen, but nothing has been damaged yet.”

“Yet!” said Koppel. “But if I didn’t misunderstand what you said before, the Russians are really no more than a few keystrokes away from implementing exactly that kind of damage on, as you put it, thousands of American firms.”

“That’s right. And we do not have plans or capability today to quickly come back after that kind of devastating attack,” Clarke said. “The kind of things that we need to do now, we could have done 20 years ago. Twenty years ago, however, there wasn’t a real understanding in the Congress or in the White House. There wasn’t a willingness to spend the kind of resources.  People were worried about privacy concerns and ‘Big Brother’ controls. They didn’t trust the government to defend them against this sort of thing.”

“And here we are, with trust in government at probably a lower ebb than it’s ever been,” said Koppel. “And you think that’s gonna change?”

“Neither government nor the private sector can defend our networks alone; they have to work together,” said Clarke.

Alexander added, “And we need to unite the country. Put the politics aside and say, ‘What’s the right thing for this nation?'”

Koppel said, “When you listen to some of the chest-beating that is going on in certain circles about taking retaliatory action against the Russians – just give me your thoughts on that.”

“We don’t want to create a deeper cyber war in cyberspace,” Alexander said. “But we need to send a message. Now, that can be done outside of cyber – diplomatically, politically, economically. It can be done in cyber. It can be done overtly or covertly. Because imagine if we did attack, and then they attack back. Who has more to lose?  We do.”

Koppel asked David Sanger, “Who is able to sustain the pain of a cyberattack more effectively – we or our enemies?”

“Probably our enemies,” he replied. “One of the other strange things about cyber is that the advantage goes to the least-networked society attacking the most-networked society. And we are clearly, Ted, the most-networked society.”

“So, here we are in this extraordinary position,” Koppel said, “of being arguably the most-technologically-advanced country in the world; probably the best at cyber technology in the world and simultaneously, if not the most vulnerable, among the most vulnerable in the world.”

“That’s absolutely right,” Sanger replied. “As one of the leading thinkers inside cyber command says, Michael Sulmeyer: ‘We live in the glassiest of the glass houses,’ right? So, while we may have the biggest weapons, we’re nothing but picture windows.

“And it’s really easy to throw a rock through one.”

For more info:

• Richard Clarke, Good Harbor
• “The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats” by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake (Penguin Press), in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon and Indiebound
• David E. Sanger, The New York Times
• “The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age” by David Sanger (Crown), in Trade Paperback, eBook and Audio formats, available via Amazon and Indiebound
• Keith Alexander, IronNet Cybersecurity

Congress convened Sunday for the start of a new session, swearing in lawmakers during a tumultuous period as a growing number of Republicans work to overturn Joe Biden’s victory over President Donald Trump and the coronavirus surges.

Democrat Nancy Pelosi was set to be reelected as House speaker by her party, which retains the majority in the House but with the slimmest margin in 20 years after a November election wipeout.

Opening the Senate could be among Mitch McConnell’s final acts as majority leader. Republican control is in question until Tuesday’s runoff elections for two Senate seats in Georgia. The outcome will determine which party holds the chamber.

The House and Senate opened at noon, as required by law, with strict COVID protocols. Elbow bumps replaced handshakes as senators took the oath of office. Fewer family members than usual joined lawmakers at the Capitol.

“To say the new Congress convenes at a challenging time would be an understatement,” McConnell said as the chamber opened.

Still, McConnell said with the start of a new year there are reasons for optimism, “let’s make the American people proud.”

A dozen Republicans bound for the new Senate, led by Sens. Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, and even more in the House have pledged to become a resistance force to Biden’s White House, starting with efforts to subvert the will of American voters. These GOP lawmakers plan to object to the election results when Congress meets on Wednesday to tally his 306-232 Electoral College victory over Trump.

Vice President Mike Pence, who as president of the Senate, presides over the session and declares the winner, is facing growing pressure from Trump’s allies over that ceremonial role.

Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, said in a statement Saturday that Pence “welcomes the efforts of members of the House and Senate to use the authority they have under the law to raise objections.”

Democrats, meanwhile, are pushing ahead, eager to partner with Biden on shared priorities, starting with efforts to stem the pandemic and economic crisis. They plan to revisit the failed effort to boost pandemic aid to $2,000 for most people.

“This has been a moment of great challenge in the United States of America filled with trials and tribulations, but help is on the way,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the chairman of the House Democratic caucus, said in an interview.

“America is a resilient nation, filled with resilient people,” he said. “We will continue to rise to the occasion, emerge from this pandemic and continue to march toward our more perfect union.”

Among the House Republican newcomers are Trump-aligned Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who has given nod to conspiracy Q-Anon theories, and gun rights advocate Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who circulated a letter of support to retain the right of lawmakers to carry firearms in the Capitol.

Greene was among a group of House Republicans led by Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama who visited with Trump at the White House during the holiday season about their effort to undo the election.

The “Jan. 6 challenge is on,” Taylor Greene said in a tweet pinned to the top of her social media account. Boebert also tweeted support for those challenging Biden’s victory.

House Republicans boosted their ranks in the November election, electing a handful of women and minorities, more than ever. Some of the new GOP lawmakers are being called the “Freedom Force,” and a counter to the “squad” — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and other liberal Democratic women who swept to office in the last session.

In a statement Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the minority leader, said the new Republican members “are a strong representation of who America is and where we come from.”

Progressive Democrats bolstered their ranks with newcomers aligned with more liberal priorities.

The Capitol itself is a changed place under coronavirus restrictions. Lawmakers are arriving in Washington from all parts of the country potentially exposed to the virus during their travel.

Several lawmakers have been sickened by the virus and some will be absent Sunday. Also, a memorial was held Saturday for newly-elected Republican lawmaker Luke Letlow, 41, of Louisiana, who died of complications from COVID-19 days before the swearing in.

The Office of the Attending Physician has issued several lengthy memos warning lawmakers off meeting in groups or holding traditional receptions to prevent the spread of the virus. Masks have been ordered worn at all times and Pelosi has required them to be used in the House chamber. Members are required to have coronavirus tests and have access to vaccines.

“Do not engage any in-person social events, receptions, celebrations, or appointments, outside your family unit, and always wear a face covering outside your home,” the physician’s office warned in one memo. “You should strictly avoid any type of office-based reception or celebration during the days ahead.”

Even the traditional swearing-in ceremonies will be limited in the House. No more big family portraits with new lawmakers taking the oath of office. Instead, each representative-elect can bring one guest in line with social distancing protocols.

The vice president typically swears in the senators and Pence elbow-bumped senators as he did.

Pelosi, who is returning as speaker, faces a tight race, with the House split 222-211, with one race still undecided and one vacancy after Letlow’s death.

The California Democrat can endure some defections from her ranks, but only a few, barring absences. In a letter to colleagues Sunday, she said she was “confident that the Speaker’s election today will show a united Democratic Caucus ready to meet the challenges ahead.” She needs to win a majority of those present and voting to retain the speaker’s gavel.