Early this morning at 8:15 a.m. a man who appears to be a stranger to everyone enters the First Baptist Church and shoots the minister. The gun jammed and good thing, otherwise the congregation would have likely lost many more. The man was restrained after stabbing himself and others around him.
Such incidents will only raised future concerns by other congregations and revive talk about carry conceal laws so that congregations have the ability to protect themselves. Remember, only one died because his gun jammed.
More details will be coming out. What appears to be a complete stranger targeting the minister just smacks of something very big behind the scenes. Perhaps we will find more coming out in the next few days.
The Rev. Fred Winters was at the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in Maryville, Ill. at 8:15 a.m. local time when a man “walked down the aisle of the church,” approached the pulpit and shot Winters in the chest with a .45 caliber handgun, said Trooper Ralph Timmins of the Illinois State Police, which is handling the investigation.
The gun jammed, and the shooter then injured himself with a knife and subsequently was restrained by parishioners, Timmins said in a “preliminary release” left on his office voicemail recording. Approximately 150 people were in the church at the time.
Two parishioners who “tackled” the shooter received “non-life-threatening” injuries from the knife, Timmins said.
Winters was “pronounced [dead] at the hospital for a single gunshot wound to the chest,” Timmins said.
via ABC News: ‘No One Can Fathom a Motive’: Pastor Shot During Service.
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