From Jay Reeves, Associated Press
VESTAVIA HILLS, Alabama – A 71-year-old man fatally shot dead two elderly people and wounded a third with a pistol during a dinner at a church in Alabama, where he occasionally attended services, police said on Friday.
The suspect was subdued and detained by an attendant until police arrived on Thursday night, rescuing the congregation from further violence at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, police captain Shane Ware said.
“It was extremely important to save lives,” Weir told a news conference. “I think the person who subdued the suspect was a hero.
Ware gave no motive for the shooting. He also did not identify a suspect detained by police at the church. He said the man’s name was withheld until prosecutors formally charged the man with murder.
Walter Rainey, 84, of nearby Irondale, was killed at the church, and Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham, died after being taken to hospital. The third victim, an 84-year-old woman, remains in hospital, Ware said.
He said the suspect and all three victims were white.
The event was a “Boomers Potluck” gathering inside the church, according to messages posted on the church’s Facebook page by Pastor Rev. John Burrus. He said he was in Greece on a pilgrimage with a group of members and was trying to return to Alabama.
Police are still trying to determine the shooter’s motive, Ware said. He said the suspect had previously attended church services.
Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry praised police response, saying officials “handled the crisis in an exemplary manner.” He said his “cohesive, resilient, loving community of 39,000” had been shaken by “this senseless act of violence.”
Rev. Rebecca Bridges, the church’s assistant rector, runs an online prayer service on the church’s Facebook page on Friday morning. She prayed not only for the victims and members of the church who witnessed the shooting, but also “for the person who carried out the shooting.”
“We pray you work in this man’s heart,” Bridges said. “And we pray that you will help us forgive.”
Bridges, who is currently in London, hinted at other recent mass shootings as she prayed to elected officials in Washington and Alabama “to see what happened in St. Stevens, Uwalde and Buffalo and so many other places and their hearts to be change, minds will be opened. “
“And that our culture will change and that our laws will change in ways that will protect us all,” she added.
There were several shootings in May and June, beginning with a racist attack on May 14 that killed 10 blacks at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The following week, a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uwalde, Texas.
Thursday’s shooting came just over a month after one man was killed and five were injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a church in Southern California. That comes nearly seven years to the day after an outspoken supporter of white supremacy killed nine people while studying the Bible at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
FBI agents, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives joined investigators at the scene, which was cordoned off on Friday with yellow police tape as police vehicles with flashing lights blocked the road to.
Thousands gathered in the United States and at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to renew calls for tighter gun control. Survivors of mass shootings and other incidents of gun violence lobbied lawmakers and testified on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement late Thursday lamenting what she called the shocking and tragic loss of life. Although she said she was glad to hear that the suspect was in custody, she wrote: “This should never happen – in a church, in a shop, in the city or anywhere.
Vestavia Hills is a residential community southeast of Birmingham, one of the two most populous cities in Alabama.
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