Authorities in Alabama are expected to hold a press conference Friday morning after a gunman opened fire inside a church, killing two members and wounding a third. A suspect is in custody.
Emergency dispatchers got a call at around 6:20 p.m. Thursday reporting an active shooter at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, said Police Capt. Shane Ware.
The wounded victim was being treated at a hospital, Ware said late Thursday. Police declined to identify the suspect or the victims or provide further details on the attack.
At the time of the shooting, a “Boomers Potluck” gathering was being held inside the church, according to messages posted on the church’s Facebook page by the Rev. John Burruss, the pastor. He said he was in Greece on a pilgrimage with a group of members and trying to get back to Alabama.
“More than anything, I ask your prayers for our community, especially those who are injured and the families of the deceased. These are the pillars of our community, and I cannot begin to fathom how painful this is for our entire church, and the larger community,” he wrote.
Thursday’s shooting happened just over a month after one person was killed and five injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a church in Southern California. It comes nearly seven years to the day after an avowed white supremacist killed nine people during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
