9.7 KiB
Church Safety
2024-05-13 Kensington, near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
East Cornwall Street.
Man barricaded in steeple of Kensington church
Officials say a man was barricaded in a Kensington church after police say he pointed a gun at them from the steeple.
https://www.fox29.com/video/1455481
Long gun.
2024-05-11 Abbeville, Louisiana
St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church
As 60 children were preparing for their first Communion, the parish located south of Lafayette, Louisiana, reported that an armed “suspicious person opened the back door.”
“The individual was immediately confronted by parishioners, escorted outside, and the police were called,” the parish indicated in a statement.
Police cleared church checking for second assailant.
Video of the altar and leading suspect to car.
Suspect teen with a long gun.
2024-05-06 North Braddock, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Jesus' Dwelling Place Church, Pittsburgh suburb.
A church service in Pennsylvania came to a terrifying halt on Sunday when a man pulled a gun on the pastor and allegedly attempted to shoot him during his sermon, officials said.
The suspected gunman, who police identified as 26-year-old Bernard Junior Polite, entered the church and allegedly attempted to shoot the pastor, Glenn Germany, as he was delivering his sermon on a live stream, according to police.
A Pennsylvania church pastor said it's a "miracle" he's alive after an assailant drew a gun on him and pulled the trigger as he was giving a sermon Sunday about the "enemies of God."
The Rev. Glenn Germany of the Jesus' Dwelling Place Church in the Pittsburgh suburb of North Braddock told "Good Morning America" that the suspect, who police said lived in a home near the church where officers found a man dead from a gunshot wound, was a stranger to his congregation.
Suspect charged in cousin's death.
2024-04-29 Sydney, Austrailia
Attempt foiled.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Four teenagers plotted to buy guns and attack Jewish people days after a bishop was stabbed i n a Sydney church, according to police documents cited in news reports on Monday.
Five teens, aged 14 to 17, were charged in a Sydney court on Thursday last week with a range of offenses including conspiring to engage in or planning a terrorist act.
Police alleged they all “adhered to a religiously motivated, violent extremist ideology” and were part of a network that included a 16-year-old boy charged with stabbing Assyrian Orthodox Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel on April 15 as a church service was being streamed online.
According to a police fact sheet tendered to the Sydney Children's Court, two of the defendants charged last week discussed buying guns on April 19, the same day the bishop's alleged attacker was charged, News Corp Australia newspapers reported.
2024-04-28 west Charlotte, North Carolina
Greater Hedges and Highway Evangelical Church
'Unfortunate': Gun brought to church by teen accidentally fires, hits other teen
2024-04-15 Sydney, Austrailia
Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley.
Eastern orthodox
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel stabbed.
Australian police are now saying that the stabbing of a church bishop and priest during a livestreamed mass outside of Sydney is a "terrorist incident."
A 16-year-old male suspect, who has not been publicly identified, remains in custody Tuesday following the attack Monday night at the Assyrian Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley.
"We believe there are elements that are satisfied in terms of religious motivated extremism," New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb said Tuesday, according to Reuters. "After consideration of all the material, I declared that it was a terrorist incident."
Austrailia trying to restrict video all around the world.
2024-02-25 Essakane village in Oudalan province, near Mali, West Africa
At least 15 people have been killed and two others injured following an attack on a Catholic church in north-eastern Burkina Faso on Sunday.
It took place during Sunday worship in Essakane village in Oudalan province - close to the border with Mali. Few details have been given.
A church official indicated the gunmen were suspected Islamist militants.
There was no immediate response from the authorities in the West African country's capital, Ouagadougou.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-68398473
2024-02-11 Houston, Texas
pastor Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston
Authorities identified the gunwoman as Genesse Ivonne Moreno. The 7-year-old accompanying her remains in critical condition after also being shot.
Several law enforcement agencies are actively investigating the motives behind a Sunday shooting at pastor Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, which has one of the nation's largest congregations. The shooter, a woman who police identified as 36-year-old Genesse Ivonne Moreno, was fatally shot by off-duty officers. No one else at the church died.
Moreno entered the church at 1:55 p.m. Sunday wearing a trench coat and a backpack and carrying an AR-15-style rifle, police said. Officers said they are still investigating how Moreno obtained the gun. A 7-year-old child, believed to be Moreno's biological son, accompanied her into the church.
Moreno fired multiple rounds upon entering a hallway of the megachurch located on Houston's busy Southwest Freeway. Two off-duty officers shot the shooter, who died on scene, according to authorities. The child was also shot in the head and is in critical condition at Texas Children's Hospital, but authorities have not said who shot him. Another 57-year-old man — identified in the affidavit as Tom George Thomas — was shot in the leg by Moreno. Officers said on Monday afternoon that he had been released from the hospital.
Moreno threatened that she had a bomb, so officers searched her vehicle and backpack but did not recover any explosives, police said. They continued a search of the church, which seats more than 16,000 people, on Sunday afternoon. Officers also said the shooter was spraying an unidentifiable substance, prompting them to call upon the Houston Fire Department and hazmat units. Fire Chief Samuel Peña said they found “nothing of concern.” He added on Monday that the substances were benign.
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/02/11/shooter-megachurch-joel-osteen-houston/
2024-01-28 Istanbul, Turkey
On January 28, 2024, masked assailants attacked a Roman Catholic church in Istanbul, killing one person. Shortly afterward, the Islamic State, through its official Amaq News Agency, claimed responsibility. Turkish police detained 47 people, most Central Asian nationals.
The incident shed light on the growing presence in Turkey of a Central Asian offshoot of the Islamic State group known as ISIS-K for Khorasan, once a large portion of the Persian Empire now divided among Iran, Afghanistan, and Central Asian states. The Jan. 28 assault was the group's first successful attack in Turkey since Jan. 1, 2017, when jihadists invaded an Istanbul nightclub, killing 39 people and wounding nearly 80.
https://www.stimson.org/2024/what-does-a-recent-isis-k-terror-attack-mean-for-turkey/
2023-12-17 Gaza, Middle East
Holy Fmaily Catholic Church
IDF confirms 'incident' at Gaza church after patriarch says 2 Christian women killed, convent bombed
IDF officials confirmed to Fox News Digital that an incident took place, claiming the it was part of an anti-terrorist operation
2023-12-03 Marawi, Philippines
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. condemned a deadly bombing on Sunday, blaming “foreign terrorists,” as police and the military strengthened security in the country's south and around the capital Manila.
At least four people were killed and at least 50 injured after a bomb exploded during a morning Catholic Mass in a university gymnasium in Marawi, a city in the south of the country besieged by Islamist militants for five months in 2017.
...Fragments of a 16-mm mortar were recovered at the scene,...
“It is possible that what happened this morning was a retaliatory attack,” Armed Forces Chief Romeo Brawner told the news conference.
The Islamic State-linked Maute seized Marawi on May 2017, seeking to make it a Southeast Asian “wilayat” — or governorate — for Islamic State. In the ensuing five-month battle, Islamist fighters and Philippine forces killed more than a thousand people, including civilians.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/philippines-bombing-catholic-mass-marawi-rcna127793
2023-09-26 Fairfax County, Virginia
Park Valley Church
Police say an armed gunman bent on mass murder shooting up a church was stopped in the nice of time thanks to a tipster and an off-duty cop.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2023/09/27/exp-tsr-todd-foiled-church-shooting-virginia.cnn
Suspect (sounds like) Rui Chang social media posts aleging top secret clearance holders. Handgun with extra mag.
2023-03-27 Nashville, Tennessee
The Covenant School in Green Hills
Catholic
Three kids, three adults.
Suspect female on hormones, transman, long gun and hand gun. Menefesto held back despite police initially saying they'd release it.