Update on C-Springs New Life Church Attack
Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 12:29 pm
Ran across an article with follow-on information about the attack at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. Link here:
http://www.gazette.com/articles/church_ ... eport.html
Of interest to me in the article:
- Colo Springs Police were at the New Life Church during its two morning services, but they left after the second service was over, but before everyone had departed the church campus. Then the attacker arrived.
- The CS police have released a 460 page report on the shooting, but the article had no link (that I could find) to it. There was a link to a statement police took from Jeanne Assam, the New Life Church member who confronted the attacker. Link here:
http://www2.gazette.com/pdf/NewLifePoliceReport.pdf
- Some people thought the attacker had a paintball gun, at least until he started shooting. At least one person thought a car was backfiring.
What jumped out at me from Ms. Assam's statement (in no particular order or level of importance), remembering it was taken just after the incident:
- She was part of an official, organized, church security team. From her description of it, and from what I remember of discussions of private security guard laws in Texas, they would have violated Texas law, had the church been in Texas. There is a big New LIfe Church in San Antonio, wonder what they do, if anything, for security?
- She normally would have departed the church campus at the time the attack took place, but for some reason, there were more people still on campus after the last service, so she hung around.
- During the second service, she pulled an approximately 16 year old kid out of the congregation because one of the ushers told her the kid was acting suspiciously. She found nothing suspicious about him, and he was cooperative. I don't believe I would have put up with being patted down by any private security guard tho, in my church or not.
- MOST INTERESTING: There were at least one, maybe two, smoke bombs set off just prior to the attack, and it appears to me an unlikely coincidence (I originally wrote this to say I didn't see how the attacker could set the smoke off, but have reconsidered this, and am not sure. Apparently it was dropped by someone in a car, who could have driven around to theother end of the church to start the attack). One, that Ms. Assam went to investigate herself, was at the opposite end of the church from where the attacker entered, and it was rather substantial. She was moving to the back to investigate a call about a possible second smoke bomb, when someone told her they heard shooting at the back. She heard gunfire as she went forward.
- She had a Beretta 92F, tucked in her waistband. (Also handcuffs) Apparently no holster. The Beretta was loaded 15+1, but at the time of the statement, she was unsure of exactly what ammo she had in it. She believed she fired nine or ten times.
- She did not have a spare magazine. She said that during the shooting she wished she did have spare ammo, in case there were other shooters. (I have read as many accounts, especially first-person accounts, of gunfights as I can come across. I have NEVER read an account where at the end, someone says, "Hey! I brought too much ammo! Next time I'll leave some at home." My spare hi-cap mag will remain my companion.)
- She apparently did not know how many times she hit the attacker - she stated he was wearing all black, apparently meaning she could not see entry/exit wounds. She did see the attacker fall, somewhat out of her view, and she advanced and kept shooting partly because she was afraid he had a grenade. Once he was down, he had his hands together, purposefully moving, at throat level, and I surmise she was afraid he was pulling a pin. My guess is he had a handgun and was getting ready to shoot himself -- she heard him say out loud he was going to kill himself.
I need to go work in the garden before I go googling for the report the police released. If anyone finds it before me, drop a link here, please.
http://www.gazette.com/articles/church_ ... eport.html
Of interest to me in the article:
- Colo Springs Police were at the New Life Church during its two morning services, but they left after the second service was over, but before everyone had departed the church campus. Then the attacker arrived.
- The CS police have released a 460 page report on the shooting, but the article had no link (that I could find) to it. There was a link to a statement police took from Jeanne Assam, the New Life Church member who confronted the attacker. Link here:
http://www2.gazette.com/pdf/NewLifePoliceReport.pdf
- Some people thought the attacker had a paintball gun, at least until he started shooting. At least one person thought a car was backfiring.
What jumped out at me from Ms. Assam's statement (in no particular order or level of importance), remembering it was taken just after the incident:
- She was part of an official, organized, church security team. From her description of it, and from what I remember of discussions of private security guard laws in Texas, they would have violated Texas law, had the church been in Texas. There is a big New LIfe Church in San Antonio, wonder what they do, if anything, for security?
- She normally would have departed the church campus at the time the attack took place, but for some reason, there were more people still on campus after the last service, so she hung around.
- During the second service, she pulled an approximately 16 year old kid out of the congregation because one of the ushers told her the kid was acting suspiciously. She found nothing suspicious about him, and he was cooperative. I don't believe I would have put up with being patted down by any private security guard tho, in my church or not.
- MOST INTERESTING: There were at least one, maybe two, smoke bombs set off just prior to the attack, and it appears to me an unlikely coincidence (I originally wrote this to say I didn't see how the attacker could set the smoke off, but have reconsidered this, and am not sure. Apparently it was dropped by someone in a car, who could have driven around to theother end of the church to start the attack). One, that Ms. Assam went to investigate herself, was at the opposite end of the church from where the attacker entered, and it was rather substantial. She was moving to the back to investigate a call about a possible second smoke bomb, when someone told her they heard shooting at the back. She heard gunfire as she went forward.
- She had a Beretta 92F, tucked in her waistband. (Also handcuffs) Apparently no holster. The Beretta was loaded 15+1, but at the time of the statement, she was unsure of exactly what ammo she had in it. She believed she fired nine or ten times.
- She did not have a spare magazine. She said that during the shooting she wished she did have spare ammo, in case there were other shooters. (I have read as many accounts, especially first-person accounts, of gunfights as I can come across. I have NEVER read an account where at the end, someone says, "Hey! I brought too much ammo! Next time I'll leave some at home." My spare hi-cap mag will remain my companion.)
- She apparently did not know how many times she hit the attacker - she stated he was wearing all black, apparently meaning she could not see entry/exit wounds. She did see the attacker fall, somewhat out of her view, and she advanced and kept shooting partly because she was afraid he had a grenade. Once he was down, he had his hands together, purposefully moving, at throat level, and I surmise she was afraid he was pulling a pin. My guess is he had a handgun and was getting ready to shoot himself -- she heard him say out loud he was going to kill himself.
I need to go work in the garden before I go googling for the report the police released. If anyone finds it before me, drop a link here, please.
When there were "only" 100 to 200 people left on the campus, the officers departed. They were all called back by cell phone or radio when the shooting started 10 minutes later, but too late to intervene.