You gotta be frikkin kidding me.
Skits are common in protestant churches today, particularly of the evangelical persuasion. I’m unfond of them, but our own church has them occasionally, like when a parishioner dressed up as a homeless person and ran crying for help down the aisle. Some sort of lesson on helping the less fortunate ensued.
So it’s not unfeasible that folks thought this was something of the sort. For a few seconds at least.
Apparently they have done skits before and I heard one man recalling the shooting and saying that the preacher's bible, which had been raised in a defensive manner, blew into what appeared to be a cloud of confetti when it was hit with one of the shots. That is what made some think it was a skit.
Our church produced a modern telling of the Easter Story and we used a gun in place of a sword where Peter chopped the ear on the Roman soldier. We also had Jesus zipped up in a body bag when he was taken off the cross. The sound of that zipper was chilling and that’s all you could hear the congregation was so quiet.