Author Topic: Church Shootings in Colorado  (Read 1574 times)

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Offline Ursus

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Church Shootings in Colorado
« on: December 09, 2007, 10:47:31 PM »
December 9, 2007
AP Photo:  Icicle holiday lights hang from the overhangs of a youth ministry dormitory on the campus...

ARVADA, Colo. - A gunman opened fire in a training center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday after being told he couldn't spend the night, killing two of the center's staff members and wounding two others. No arrests had been made by afternoon.

The shooting happened at about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center in this Denver suburb, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.

A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.

The gunman came to the door of the dormitory seeking shelter, asking if he could spend the night, said Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver.

When told he couldn't stay, the man walked inside, opened fire, then left on foot, Warren said.

Warren said he didn't know if any of the students or staff knew the gunman. He said the man had not been at a Christmas party that staff and students held at the dormitory that evening.

"We don't know why" he came to the dormitory, Warren said.

Witnesses told police that the gunman was a 20-year-old white male, wearing a dark jacket and skull cap, who left on foot. He may have glasses or a beard.

Police with dogs searched the area through the night, and residents of nearby homes were notified by reverse 911 to be on the lookout. Medina said residents were asked to look out their windows for any tracks left in the snow during the night. About 4 inches of snow had fallen in the area in the past day.

Brady White, who attends Faith Bible Chapel, where the center is located, said students he spoke to called the experience "terrifying."

"They're just wonderful people," White said of the center's students. "Their mission is to know God and to make him known."

Police identified the victims as Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 23. Youth With a Mission said Johnson was from Minnesota and Crouse was from Alaska. Their hometowns weren't immediately available.

About 45 people were evacuated from the dormitory and moved to an undisclosed location.

Cheril Morrison, wife of chapel pastor George Morrison, said Crouse had just hung up Christmas lights at her home and Johnson was "an amazingly beautiful person."

One of the injured men was hospitalized in critical condition and the other was in stable condition, police said. Both are in their 20s.

Mimi Martin, who lives near the center, said she received the warning call at about 9 a.m. warning neighbors to keep their doors and windows locked.

"Why would anybody want to hurt those kids?" Martin said. "I just pray for their families."

People bundled up against freezing cold attended Sunday services at the sanctuary, about 300 yards from the dormitory on the campus of the Faith Bible Chapel. Police kept tight security on the chapel grounds.

"We never doubted that we would have a service," said Cheril Morrison. "We felt like our church faithful all needed to be together."

Darv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission center in Boulder, said people ranging from their late teens to their 70s undergo a 12-week course that prepares them to be missionaries. He said the center trains about 300 people a year.

Filidis said staffers are usually former missionaries themselves and that the "mercy ministries" performed by trainees include orphanage work. He said he didn't know where the group being trained in Arvada was going to be sent.

Youth With a Mission was started in 1960 and now has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, Smith said. The Arvada center was founded in 1984.
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Offline Ursus

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Later that day, different church...
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2007, 11:00:23 PM »
USA TODAY
At least 4 shot outside Colorado Springs church
December 9, 2007

COLORADO SPRINGS (AP) — A gunman opened fire in the parking lot of a Colorado Springs church on Sunday, striking four people, the church's pastor said.

The conditions of the people shot outside the New Life Church were not known, El Paso County Sheriff's Lt. Lari Sevene said.

Lance Coles, a pastor at New Life Church, told The Associated Press he received a report that a man was shooting at people in the church parking lot and that the gunman may have entered the church.

It was not immediately known whether the shootings were related to an earlier shooting about 70 miles away in the Denver suburb of Arvada. There, two people died and two were wounded early Sunday when a gunman opened fire in a dormitory at a missionary training center on the campus of Faith Bible Chapel.

New Life was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was fired last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him.

Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted committing undisclosed "sexual immorality."

The church is one of Colorado's largest with about 10,000 members.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.
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Offline Ursus

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Offline Anonymous

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Church Shootings in Colorado
« Reply #3 on: December 10, 2007, 01:10:22 AM »
I see a pattern here.  Pissed off at holy rollers?

I wonder why.
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »

Offline Ursus

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Church Shootings in Colorado
« Reply #4 on: December 10, 2007, 04:57:13 PM »


The investigation into two church tragedies is focusing on a 24-year-old Arapahoe County man who lives at a house that was first searched before the second shooting Sunday.

Law enforcement sources have told CBS 4 News reporter Rick Sallinger that the gunman found dead in the New Life Church in Colorado Springs is Matthew J. Murray, one of two sons of metro-area neurosurgeon Ronald S. Murray.

Police agencies first arrived at the Murray home in the 10900 block of East Berry Place before noon Sunday and searched until before dawn today.

Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson confirmed that his agency's bomb squad was dispatched to the home in the 10900 block of East Berry Place about 7:15 Sunday night. He said his agency was supporting Arvada and Colorado Springs police who were executing a search warrant at the house.

Several smoke bombs were found at the scene of the second shooting at New Life Church, Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers said.

Robinson said deputies initially arrived at the home after the first shooting, which occurred at 12:30 a.m. Sunday at the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada, but before the second shooting occurred after 1 p.m. outside the Colorado Springs church.

Authorities have not confirmed whether the two shootings are connected.

Police were seen taking several boxes of items from the home.

Murray's neighbors described him as a recluse.

Robinson referred questions about the search and what was seized to Arvada and Colorado Springs police.

Ronald Murray's Lone Tree medical office was closed this morning.

"Dr. Murray's office is closed and he will not be available until further notice," a phone recording said.

Police from the Colorado Springs and Arvada police departments are planning to hold a joint news conference later this afternoon to announce further developments in the shooting investigations.

If you are acquainted with Matthew J. Murray, or have photographs of him to share with the Rocky, please contact
metro@rockymountainnews.com
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Offline Ursus

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Church Shootings in Colorado
« Reply #5 on: December 10, 2007, 05:08:41 PM »
« Last Edit: December 31, 1969, 07:00:00 PM by Guest »
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Offline Ursus

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Church Shootings in Colorado
« Reply #6 on: December 10, 2007, 07:43:11 PM »


COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The gunman believed to have killed four people at a megachurch and a missionary training school had been thrown out of the school a few years ago and had been sending it hate mail, police said in court papers Monday.

The gunman was identified as Matthew Murray, 24, who was home-schooled in what a friend said was a deeply religious Christian household. Murray's father is a neurologist and a leading multiple-sclerosis researcher.

Five people — including Murray — were killed, and five others wounded Sunday in the two eruptions of violence 12 hours and 65 miles apart.

The first attack took place at Youth With a Mission, a training center for missionaries in the Denver suburb of Arvada; the other occurred at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where Murray was shot to death by a security guard. The training center maintains an office at the 10,000-member church.

"Through both investigations it has been determined that most likely the suspect in both shootings are one in the same," police said in court papers.

Colorado Springs police said the "common denominator in both locations" was Youth With a Mission.

"It appears that the suspect had been kicked out of the program three years prior and during the past few weeks had sent different forms of hate mail to the program and-or its director," police said.

In a statement, the training center said health problems kept Murray from finishing the program. It did not elaborate. Murray did not complete the lecture phase or a field assignment as part of a 12-week program, Youth With a Mission said.

"The program directors felt that issues with his health made it inappropriate for him to" finish, it said.

Police gave no immediate details on the hate mail. And the training center said that Murray left in 2002 — five years ago, not three — and that no one there can recall any visits or other communication from him since then.

Earlier Monday, a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said it appeared Murray "hated Christians."

Investigators have not said whether Murray singled out his victims. But the two people killed at the church — sisters Stephanie and Rachael Works, ages 18 and 16 — frequented the training center, their uncle Mark Schaepe of Lincoln, Neb., told The Gazette of Colorado Springs.

Authorities searched the Murray house on a quiet street in Englewood on Monday for guns, ammunition and computers. No one was home when a reporter visited the split-level brick home early Monday. Murray's father, Ronald S. Murray, is chief executive of the Rocky Mountain Multiple Sclerosis Center in Englewood.

Matthew Murray lived there along with a brother, Christopher, 21, a student at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Okla.

A neighbor, Cody Askeland, 19, said the brothers were home-schooled, describing the whole family as "very, very religious."

Christopher studied for a semester at Colorado Christian University before transferring to Oral Roberts, said Ronald Rex, dean of admissions and marketing at Colorado Christian. He said Matthew Murray had been in contact with school officials this summer about attending the school but decided he wasn't interested because he thought the school was too expensive.

Police said Murray's only previous brush with the law was a traffic ticket earlier this year.

Senior Pastor Brady Boyd of New Life Church said the gunman had no connection to the church. "We don't know this shooter," Boyd said. "He showed up on our property yesterday with a gun with the intention of hurting people, and he did."

The gunman opened fire at 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center. Witnesses said the man asked to spend the night there and opened fire with a handgun when he was turned down. They described him as a young man, perhaps 20, in a dark jacket and cap.

Later, at New Life Church, a gunman wearing a trench coat and carrying a high-powered rifle opened fire in the parking lot and later walked into the church as a service was letting out.

Jeanne Assam, a church member who volunteers as a security guard, shot and killed Murray, who was found with a rifle and two handguns, police said. The pastor called her "a real hero."

"When the shots were fired, she rushed toward the scene and encountered the attacker there in a hallway. He never got more than 50 feet inside our building," he said. "There could have been a great loss of life yesterday, and she probably saved over 100 lives."

Boyd said the gunman had a lot of ammunition and estimated that 40 rounds had been fired inside the church, leaving what looked like a "war scene."

Jessie Gingrich, who had left New Life and was in the parking lot getting into her car, saw the gunman get a rifle from his trunk and open fire on a van with people inside. Gingrich said she cowered in her vehicle, fumbling with the key.

"I was just expecting for the next gunshot to be coming through my car. Miraculously — by the grace of God — it did not," she told ABC's "Good Morning America."

About 7,000 people were in and around the church the time of the shooting, Boyd said. Security had been beefed up after the shootings hours earlier in Arvada, he said. The church had a total of 15 to 20 volunteer security officers inside at the time of the attack, he said.

Some members of the congregation reacted with compassion and forgiveness, in keeping with their faith.

Ashley Gibbs was getting into a car with David Harris when they heard the gunshots. They stayed in the vehicle.

"It was obvious that he was in some sort of pain and going through a lot," Gibbs told "Today." "I just prayed God would bring him peace."

New Life, with a largely upper middle-class membership, was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was dismissed last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him. Haggard admitted committing unspecified "sexual immorality."

The two people killed at the missionary center were identified as Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24.

Johnson, who grew up in Chisholm, Minn., loved working with children and wanted to see the world, said family friend Carla Macynski.

"Tiffany was a well-liked, easygoing 26-year-old. She was friendly, adventurous and a definite leader," Macynski said as she choked back tears. Johnson had traveled to Egypt, Libya and South Africa with the missionary group.

Crouse, of Alaska, was a former skinhead who went through a dramatic spiritual conversion at 18. He had helped build a foster home at a Crow Indian reservation in Montana, said Ronny Morris, who works with a Denver chapter of the mission.

"Whenever somebody asks me to give a specific situation where a kid's life has been changed or transformed, I always think of Phil, because he had such a radical transformation of life," said pastor Zach Chandler in Anchorage, Alaska.

Youth With a Mission was started in 1960 and now has 1,100 locations with 16,000 full-time staff, said Darv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission center in Boulder.

The Colorado shootings came days after a 19-year-old gunman opened fire at a busy department store in Omaha, Neb., killing eight people and himself.

___

Associated Press Religion Writer Eric Gorski and AP staff writers Colleen Slevin and George Merritt in Colorado and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this report.
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