Whether to ever release these videos or keep them permanently out of sight raises vexing questions. Releasing them could affect the integrity of law enforcement investigations, re-traumatize families of victims and feed online voyeurs and conspiracy theorists, officials say. But others argue that keeping the videos out of public view masks the true horror of mass shootings and allows politicians and the public to avoid confronting their bloody reality.

Officials have kept videos from other mass shootings out of public view for years after the fact, including those that captured parts of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016, the attack at Fort Hood in 2009, and the deadly shooting at a constituent event in Tucson led by former Representative Gabrielle Giffords in 2011.

The Rev. Stephen Curry, who helped preside over the first vigil for the First Baptist Church victims on Sunday night, said people were just too devastated to support the release of the video. In time, he said, it could be made public and serve historical and educational purposes, as with Abraham Zapruder’s footage of the Kennedy assassination. It could “help us learn about how to protect each other, how to protect ourselves, how to protect the congregation,” he said.

But not now. “It’s too raw,” he said.

State and federal law enforcement officials have reviewed the Texas footage but have not said whether they intend to release it. The video was seized as part of an investigation that is likely to last for months as officials unravel the life and criminal past of the gunman, Devin P. Kelley, who officials say was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he carried out the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.

“You have a dead suspect, so one of the arguments will be, ‘The suspect is dead, we’re not going to court, so why not release it now?’” said Tony Leal, a former chief of the Texas Rangers, the unit leading the investigation into the attack in Sutherland Springs. “And the answer to that question is: ‘Because the investigation continues.’”