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New Life Church: Female Security Guard Shoots Gunman Dead at Church

December 9th, 2007
By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist

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UPDATE: It’s been determined that one man wounded five persons and murdered four persons at both churches which are about 60 miles apart. Matthew Murray, 24, a home-schooled son (one of two brothers) of a priminent Denver family did the shooting. Murray was five years ago an ‘associate’ At the Missionary Training Center, but was found ‘healthwise’ unfit for assignment after the 12 week training for missionary work. That Missionary Training Center was the shooter’s first target, befre he traveled to the other churxh and unleashed more mayhem. Today, the Director of the Center said Murray was believed to have been sending hate mail to the Center. Murray’s father is a neurologist and a prominent multiple-sclerosis researcher. More on the story here

At the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Murray killed two sister, ages 16 and 18. Their father was also wounded twice and is in hospital.

The story of the female security guard who killed the shooter, Miss Jeanne Assam, is here… “Security Guard: ‘God Guided Me And Protected Me’”

Today there were incomprehensible deadly shootings at two different churches in Colorado

…one shooting took place just after midnight in the youth dormitory at the Missionary Training Center, in Arvada, Colorado, a city just northwest of Denver.

There, the gunman shot dead two young people in their early 20s, one from Alaska and one from Minnesota. The gunman also seriously wounded two other young people there, one from South Dakota.

All were in a Youth Worship Mission together and were cleaning up after a Christmas party. Their pictures were flashed on television. Many tears. The police were unable to find the shooter.

…The other shooting took place today as noon services were ending in Colorado Springs at the New Life Church, also called by some, The New Life Megachurch, that has 14,000 members, 350 employees and a huge ‘campus.’

The gunman opened fire there (it may be the same gunman that was in Arvada earlier, but this is not confirmed) and killed two persons, one a teenage girl. He shot three others who are in hospital with life-threatening injuries.

The New Life Church had taken an extra precaution after hearing about the Arvada incident earlier in the day.

A female security guard on the scene at the Colorado Springs church, shot the killer dead. (She is currently lauded for saving lives. This is all the info that has been released about her thus far, the sheriff only referring to the guard as ‘her’.)

Now come more televised pictures of the victims’ yearbook photos. More tears. Sheriff with badge. News conference/ gaggle of mikes. Brave. Contained. Tragedy. People in Michelin Tire Man parkas embracing in the freezing cold. Steam rising as network affiliate reporters report. Governor’s message. Senator’s message. People shake when they try to speak.

The New Life Megachurch has had difficult times this past year as it is the church founded by Pastor Ted Haggard, who was let go for engaging with a homosexual prostitute. Haggard was, nonetheless, popular with his church members, and the church was recovering.

Focus on The Family run by James Dobson, is just down the road in Colorado Springs. No doubt the reverberation of this tragedy reached them quickly.

Meanwhile, across the nation, in basements, garages, bedrooms, cellars, attics, living rooms, other disturbed persons write the next or the last entry in their journals of screed. They count and recount the ammo one more time. They know, they just know they are going to abate Evil and set things Right in the world. They use Mapquest to figure out how to get to their targeted ground zero. Perfectly functional, can drive a car. Perfectly deadly, sick as rabid dogs.

And no one notices. Or tries not to. Or says, not my problem. Or says, well, we’re all a little odd. Or just stays away and hopes for the best.

I can only say, that once again, likely the person or persons who were the shooters at the churches, will have had a history of instability that too many did not recognize for its homicidal and suicidal nature, or misinterpreted the severity of what they were seeing.

Personal freedoms are so highly cherished in our country, that sometimes, people do not want to try to interfere, even when they know someone is quite mad and NOT harmless.

In California, even when a person suffering from severe mental illness poses a clear danger to themselves or to others, there are laws that prevent sincerely concerned others from helping the severely ill person get the help they need.

Is it such in our culture that in order to avoid ‘the slippery slope’ of people perhaps wrongfully being detained for a ‘mental health hold’ by their grubbing relatives, that we have accepted continual and unceasing mass murder by seriously disturbed people? Is this the only trade?



This entry was posted on Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 11:26 pm and is filed under Guns, Death, Disease, Mass Murder, Virginia Tech, Crime, Life, Civil Liberties, Breaking News. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 
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