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On Sunday, an off-duty police officer shot and killed a woman who claimed she had a bomb and opened fire with a rifle at Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston, leaving a 5-year-old child in critical condition after being shot. .
Houston Police Chief Troy Finner said the woman, wearing a trench coat and accompanied by a child, entered Lakewood Church in Osteen between services just before 2 p.m. CT and inexplicably fired a long rifle. I started doing it.
“She came in and at some point started firing,” Finner said. He added that officers at the scene reported that the woman, estimated to be between 30 and 35 years old, was in possession of explosives.
A Texas Liquor Commission officer and two Houston Police Department officers opened fire, striking the woman, Finner said. “Unfortunately, a 5-year-old was shot. There was also a 57-year-old man, who I don’t think had anything to do with that, who was shot in the leg,” the chief said.
Osteen, one of the most high-profile pastors in the country who presides over services attended by tens of thousands of people, said he was “in a fog” after the shooting. According to the Hartford Institute of Religion, 45,000 people regularly attend services at this church each week, making it the third largest megachurch in the United States. Osteen’s televised sermons have reached approximately 100 countries.
“We’ve been here for 65 years, and someone would shoot up in your church?” Osteen said at a news conference with police. “We don’t understand why this happened. We will pray for that five-year-old boy, we will pray for the woman who died, her family, and the other gentleman. ”
He said the church “is going to stay strong. We’re going to keep moving forward. There are forces of evil, but the power for us, the power of God, is stronger.”
Osteen said she’s thankful more people weren’t hurt. “If there’s anything good about it, it’s that she didn’t get in there and she didn’t do more damage,” he said.
Longtime church member Alan Guity, 35, was resting in the church sanctuary before the 2 p.m. Spanish service while his mother worked as an usher when he heard gunshots. That’s what it means.
“Boom, boom, boom, boom, and I screamed, ‘Mommy,'” he said. He ran to his mother and they both lay on the floor and prayed as the gunshots continued. They remained there for about five minutes until someone told them it was safe to evacuate. Guiti said he and his mother worshiped outside and tried to calm people down by singing in Spanish, “Move in me, move in me.” Please touch my heart and mind. Please move the Holy Spirit within me. ”
Officers later searched the backpack and the woman’s white car, Finner said, but found no trace of explosives. Officers also reported that the woman had sprayed something on the floor around her before the assault.
Finner said it was unclear whether the child, who is hospitalized in critical condition, was injured by the woman or the officer.
Both the deputy and the police officer have been placed on leave, he said. He declined to speculate on why the women joined the church.
“We don’t know her motives and may never know,” he said.
large church facility
Houston police tweeted Sunday afternoon that they were responding to a shooting at the church, a 606,000-square-foot, 16,000-seat former sports arena where thousands of people packed for worship. “Activities are still ongoing. Please avoid the area,” the police department posted.
Ed Gonzalez, the sheriff of Harris County, where Houston is the county seat, also posted about the incident on X. Gonzalez wrote that at 3:10 p.m., he received a report of shots fired in or around Lakewood Church. Gonzalez said the department had employees working there.
Joel Osteen and Lakewood Church
At 7:10 a.m. Central Time, Osteen posted a message to X saying the church community “appreciates the swift action of law enforcement.”
“In the face of such darkness, we must hold fast to our faith and remember that evil will not prevail,” he wrote.
Lakewood Church draws large crowds for weekly services, with numbers reported ranging from 40,000 to 50,000.
The nondenominational church has been streaming its services online, with the next broadcast scheduled for 7 p.m. Central Time, but the service has been canceled, the church posted on its Facebook page.
Osteen became a pastor after his father passed away in 1999. The church opened in 2017 as a flood shelter from Hurricane Harvey after critics on social media criticized it for not opening its doors sooner.
In 2021, the church made headlines again when a plumber working at the church found hundreds of envelopes containing checks and cash hidden in the wall behind the restroom. The Associated Press later reported that the stash may be connected to the theft of $600,000 in checks and cash reported at the church in 2014.
The church was the site of an anti-abortion protest in 2022, with three protesters wearing their underwear during the service.
The city of Houston announced on social media Sunday that Mayor John Whitmire and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were on scene at the church.
Contribution: Associated Press
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