A gunman on Sunday shot four staff members at a missionary training centre near Denver, Colorado, killing two, after being told he could not spend the night. About 12 hours later and 105km away, a gunman fatally shot a parishioner at a megachurch and wounded four other people before a guard killed him, police said.
The police chief in Arvada, a suburb about 25km west of Denver where the mission workers were shot, said the shootings may be related to those at the Colorado Springs church but declined to elaborate. No one had been captured in the Arvada shootings, authorities said.
The mission training programme in Arvada does have a small office on the Colorado Springs church campus.
Witness descriptions differed in each incident. A handgun was used in the shootings at the Youth With a Mission centre in Arvada, while a rifle was used at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, police said.
The gunman at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs was shot and killed by a church security guard after entering the church’s main foyer with a high-powered rifle shortly before 1pm local time Sunday and opening fire, Colorado Springs police chief Richard Myers said. Four others were wounded, Myers said.
The church’s 11am service had just ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery.
Police arrived to find that the gunman had been killed by a member of the church’s armed security staff, Myers said. ”There was a courageous staff member who probably saved many lives here today,” he said.
Governor Bill Ritter ordered state authorities to help investigate. The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting, and officers combed the church campus looking for suspicious devices.
Three of the injured were taken to Penrose Community Hospital in Colorado Springs, said hospital spokesperson Amy Sufak. One person was critical, she said. It was not known where the fourth injured person was being treated.
New Life was founded by the Reverend 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 New Life church is one of Colorado’s largest with about 10 000 members.
Colorado Springs
About 7 000 people were on the Colorado Springs campus at the time of the shooting, senior Pastor Brady Boyd said. Security at the church had been beefed up after the early-morning shootings in Arvada, he said.
That shooting happened at about 12.30am on Sunday at the Youth With a Mission centre in Arvada, a Denver suburb, police spokesperson Susan Medina said. A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded.
All four were staff members of the centre, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesperson with Youth With a Mission.
Arvada police chief Don Wick, asked whether he believed there was reason to think the shootings are related, responded: ”Yes, there is reason to believe that.”
Wick said the suspect spent several minutes speaking with people inside the dorm. Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver, said the man asked whether he could spend the night. Several youths called on Tiffany Johnson, the centre’s director of hospitality.
”The director of hospitality was called. That’s when he opened fire,” Warren said. Johnson (26) was killed.
Warren said he didn’t know whether any of the students or staff knew the gunman. ”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 had a handgun and left on foot. He may have glasses or a beard.
In addition to Johnson, killed in Arvada was Philip Crouse (24). Youth With a Mission said Johnson was from Minnesota and Crouse was from Alaska.
The missionary centre identified the wounded as Dan Griebenow (24) and Charlie Blanch (22). One of the men was in critical condition and the other was stable, police said.
The missionary centre is on the grounds of the Faith Bible Chapel.
Cheril Morrison, wife of chapel Pastor George Morrison, said Crouse had just hung up Christmas lights at her home and that Johnson was ”an amazingly beautiful person”.
Darv Smith, director of a Youth With a Mission centre 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 centre 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 did not 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 centre was founded in 1984. — Sapa-AP