Gunman Opens Fire Inside Texas Church; 8 Dead

As scores of teenagers sang out prayers, a gunman opened fire Wednesday evening in a Baptist church here, fatally wounding at least seven people and injuring seven more before killing himself.

Shot after shot echoed through the crowded chapel of the Wedgwood Baptist Church. Worshipers, thinking at first that it must be a prank, kept on singing. But when they realized what was happening, they dived to the floor and scrunched under pews, terrified and silent as the gunfire continued.

Police confirmed that six people were killed during the barrage, which began about 7 p.m. CDT as a concert of contemporary Christian music was about to get underway. A seventh victim died later at the hospital. At least three of the dead were teenagers. Four of the wounded suffered critical injuries.

The bodies of the gunman and his victims remained in the chapel for hours as bomb squad dogs and a remote-controlled robot searched for possible booby-traps. Police said they were afraid to move the shooter’s body because they suspected he had strapped explosives to himself. Officials said he apparently used a semiautomatic handgun for the rampage and may also have tossed a pipe bomb into the sanctuary.

“There’s cartridges, shrapnel . . . and blood splattered all over the wall,” said Lt. David Ellis, a police spokesman.

Witnesses said the gunman was tall, bearded and dressed in black. But their descriptions of his behavior varied: Some said he was calm, others said he shouted obscenities or mumbled anti-religious invective. Some said he was smoking a cigarette as he walked into the sanctuary; others said he ordered the worshipers to “stay still” as he began firing indiscriminately.

He later turned his gun on police--and as officers closed in, on himself.

“We were just sitting and praising the Lord when we heard some loud noises,” said Haley Herron, a 17-year-old high school senior who was attending the concert with a friend. “We all kept singing because we didn’t know what was going on.”

Her voice faltered. “They kept shooting and shooting and shooting.”

She remembered the scene as being eerily quiet: No one screaming, no one crying, just the bam, bam, bam of bullets. And the boom of an explosion at the front of the sanctuary. She was lying on the floor, head under a pew. There were so many shots, she thought there must be more than one gunman. She thought they would see her feet sticking out from under the pew. “I thought they were going to shoot my legs,” she said.

When she finally ran from the church, getting to her feet when others near her did, she lost her shoes in the frantic rush. Haley said that she glimpsed one of her counselors, a church staff member with three young sons, lying on the ground. He was bleeding. People crouched over him, trying to help.

She counted three bullet holes in him as she passed.

“I kept thinking, ‘This is fake, this is fake,’ ” she said.

Information on the victims and the gunman remained sketchy late Wednesday as law enforcement officials swept the area for possible explosives and dozens of police cars and firetrucks surrounded the church. Agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms cordoned off the parking lot and began checking each car, again in search of bombs.

Police did not release the gunman’s name or indicate a possible motive, although several witnesses said he mocked the worshipers’ religious beliefs as he shot them. He apparently reloaded several times during the spree; officers saw at least three ammunition cartridges on the church floor. As police responded to the scene and opened fire, the gunman “sat in the back pew and put a gun [to his head] and shot himself and fell over,” church official Dax Hughes told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As the investigation continued long past nightfall, members of the congregation clustered outside their bullet-scarred brick sanctuary to console, counsel and, inevitably, to question.

Few of the parishioners were able to believe that it could happen to them, here in their beloved church, where they had prayed and prayed for the victims of the Columbine High School shooting, where they had talked of love and had felt loved in return.

“Several of the kids [at first] thought it was a skit to remind everyone there how precious life is,” said Mark Herron, Haley’s father.

In a room just behind the main sanctuary, about 40 members of a prayer group came up with their own innocuous interpretation for the loud boom . . . boom . . . boom that was pounding through their church Wednesday evening. “We thought it was someone hammering, because our church is under construction,” said Kevin Rutledge, a member of the prayer circle. “Our leader asked a lady to go out and try to get the guy to stop hammering.”

But just as she stepped into the hall, a teenage boy ran by, shouting: “I’m shot! I’m shot!”

Still unable to believe what was happening, Rutledge and his friends revised their scenario. It must be a skit, they figured. Two women stepped outside to investigate. They saw blood. Their faces, as they turned back to the group, reflected the terror.

“We found out,” Rutledge said, “it was for real.”

Rutledge and his group escaped through a back door and huddled behind a nearby elementary school as police arrived at the church. Later, other congregants were ushered to the school. Many had to walk home, as police blocked off access to their cars.

“This is a terrible tragedy,” Texas Gov. George W. Bush said, “made worse by the fact that it took place in a house of hope and love.”

Wedgwood Baptist Church was particularly crowded Wednesday night because youths from several congregations had gathered for the concert, featuring a Dallas Christian rock group called Forty Days. The sanctuary was decorated for the occasion with special lights and teens and older worshipers packed the pews.

Earlier that day, many of the same teens had participated in the 10th annual “See You at the Pole” service, an international event designed to draw Christians to their school flagpoles to pray and meditate. Organizers estimated that 3 million students worldwide participated in last year’s event. This year’s observance was to have focused on the Columbine shootings.

The tragedy at Wedgwood Baptist was just the latest in a string of high-profile shootings:

On Tuesday, a man reportedly angry about his mother’s death killed three people at an Anaheim hospital; last month, Buford Furrow shot several children at a San Fernando Valley Jewish community center before killing a mail carrier; in Atlanta, day trader Mark Orrin Barton murdered his wife, two children and nine others on July 29; and in April, two students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., gunned down 12 of their classmates and a teacher before killing themselves.

Several hours after the terror subsided in Fort Worth, Rutledge said he still wasn’t sure “if it’s really hit me yet.”

He was sure, however, of his community’s response: “The church is there to stand strong,” he said, “not to crumble when something bad happens. No one’s going to run away.”

Hart reported from Fort Worth, Simon from St. Louis and Beckham from Chicago.