Posted on 12/10/2007 7:12:18 AM PST by jan in Colorado
Police in Colorado on Monday were looking into possible links between shootings at a Christian evangelical church and a missionary training center over the weekend that left four victims and a gunman dead.
A man dressed in black, wearing combat boots and holding an assault rifle and at least one handgun, opened fire in the parking lot of the vast evangelical New Life church in Colorado Springs after Sunday services, killing one person on the spot and wounding others. A second person died later, police said.
A security guard shot and killed the gunman, Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers told a news conference.
Police did not identify the gunman. There were about 7,000 people in the building when the shooting erupted, a pastor said.
In an incident about 12 hours earlier and 70 miles away, a man entered a Christian missionary training center in the Denver suburb of Arvada and killed two young missionaries with a handgun shortly after midnight, police said.
The Arvada gunman, also dressed in dark clothing, fled on foot in the snow.
The attacks -- both at Christian religious buildings on a Sunday shortly before Christmas -- caused shock and dismay.
They came just four days after a 19-year-old man killed eight people and then himself with an assault rifle at a busy shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska.
Police in the two Colorado cities were sharing information but there was no indication of the motive in either case.
"We have not been able to identify a motive as of yet," Colorado Springs police spokesman Skip Arms told CNN.
While Myers said there was no information that the attacks were related, Arvada Police Chief Don Wick said there could be a connection.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Interesting.
CHristian churches - before Christmas.
In the American heartland.
Figures dressed in black.
Perhaps an ISLAMIC connection???
(Just found on USA Today)
Update at 2:06 p.m. ET: Local news organizations are reporting that the gunman has been identified as Matthew Murray. None of the reports cite a verifiable source for this information.
CNN says he worked on a mission with the first group that was targeted during yesterdays shooting sprees. The all-news station says he was carrying some 500 rounds of ammunition.
Murray was home schooled and his last known address was at his parents home in unincorporated Arapahoe County the same home investigators searched Sunday night, KUSA-TV reports on its website.
Great link, thanks.
;o)
There is no doubt that the armed church member saved A LOT of lives.
It is a sad commentary that even in our churches, we have to be ever mindful that there is no safe place in this evil world.
I don’t know if he is Muslim. I have made that suggestion, and hypothesis several times in the past on other incidents and have been incorrect. I’m not going to say definite one way or the other, but I certainly can and will speculate on the subject.
I don’t have the qualms as some people here seem to have about it, when others make such suggestions they try to call them out as “hateful”. I’m personally not hateful of ANYONE. I am, however, careful of people who’ve gone so far out of their way to prove themselves to be murderers of Western Civilization, and I will — unfortunately for those people, call it as I see it.
If the two shooters had anything whatsoever to do with Islam, and the media doesn’t tell us, then they are HIDING that information from the public. And if that is true then they are doing a disservice to America and Americans. If the government, Homeland Security or the local PD covers that information up, then they are behaving in a CRIMINAL FASHION and should be brought up on charges of hiding information from the public.
That’s MY opinion - and as someone who has worked in the government for over 30 years and dealt with classified materials, and keeping secrets, there are some things best kept “secret”, but NOT the aspects of crimes committed against the public.
The public has a RIGHT TO KNOW who these people were, and no they should NOT be kept “secret”, neither their names nor their backgrounds.
marked for later
Schools should never be gun free zones.
They just make themselves an easy target.
FOX is about to release the name of the perp in “one of the shootings”.
BRB
Matthew Murray, 24 yr old.
Definitely the one killed by the “guard” at Colorado Springs. Matthew Murray ( I dont know about the spelling yet). Religious connection — some believe this guy was at one of their guest lunches in the last few weeks.
FOX NEWS live (I’m transcribing as fast as I can!)
You know, I want to punch Sheppard Smith right in the face, he is an idiot. He just asked a reporter here in MY town, “Why would a church need an armed security guard? Isn’t that beyond the norm?”
Doesn’t he watch the news???
If such scumbags saw that news organizations and cultural commentators ignore the murderers, give them no attention, do not broadcast their photos or videos, or disseminate their letters and manifestos, but simply consider them to be anonymous nobodies, most of the appeal that spree killing holds for the demented is gone.
I think this perp being gunned down by a woman did a lot to deglamorize him. I suspect spree killers think suicide is the only "glorious" way out, and they don't seem to react well to adult women either.
I do agree that we need to stem our base curiosity about the details of this murderer's life. The Jeffco sheriff relented to public pressure and published one Columbine killer's diaries on-line. You'll find allusions to those diaries in the ranting manifesto of that Finnish school shooter.
Knowing these things proves me to be part of the problem, I suppose.
Did he really ask that question? Most questions reporters ask are ridiculous, but that one...oh my!
According to the news, he is one of two sons of a prominent Denver Neurologist. Apparently at least one of them was home schooled (and they were speculating it was Matthew). Others have told news reporters they believe this guy attended a recent “luncheon” (in the past several weeks), so they have seen him there before.
(He may not be from that church, but this is looking more and more premeditated to me... sounds to me like he was scouting the place, if he only made one or two visits, is from another county - Arapahoe - and traveled all the way down here to do this attack. It also sounds to me as if he did both shootings. Furthermore, he showed up with “plenty of rounds” as many as 500 I just read.)
This was premeditated - there are no two ways about it. He didn’t just “snap”. He thought this out. He also showed up with makeshift bombs (or smoke grenades of some sort) to hide his actions. He was wearing, according to some, body armor.
This is a “premeditated terrorist attack” (and don’t tell me it wasn’t. This was the same as any attack on any group of people with the intent to TERRORIZE them.)
A young woman is right now reporting “Gas cans”... wow. He was going to torch the place too.
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