A gunman opened fire inside a suburban Alabama church yesterday evening, killing two people and wounding a third.
The attack was carried out at around 6.20pm during a small group meeting at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the suburb of Vestavia Hills.
Investigators declined to identify the victims or the suspect, who police managed to take in alive.
No further details were released on the attack, but a press briefing is expected to be held later today.
The church’s website listed a ‘Boomers Potluck’ for Thursday night, scheduled between 5pm and 7pm.
A flyer for the event read: ‘There will be no program (sic), simply eat and have time for fellowship.’
Police didn’t provide a possible motive for the attack, but they do not believe there is any further threat to the community.
It comes just over a month after one person was and five others injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a church in Southern California.
It also comes nearly seven years to the day after an avowed white supremacist nine people during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
In Vestavia Hills, Reverend Kelley Hudlow told WBRC that the shooting had stunned the church and the community at large.
‘It is shocking. Saint Stephen’s is a community built on love and prayers and grace and they are going to come together,’ she said.
‘People of all faiths are coming together to pray to hope for healing.’
She said supportive messages were coming in from all over the US and the world, adding: ‘We need everybody out there. Pray, think, meditate and send love to this community because we are going to need all of it.’
There have been several high-profile shootings in May and June, starting with a racist attack on May 14 that 10 black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.
The following week, a gunman massacred 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
On Saturday, thousands of people rallied in the US and at the National Mall in Washington DC, to renew calls for stricter gun control measures.
Survivors of mass shootings and other incidents of gun violence lobbied legislators and testified on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
Alabama governor Kay Ivey issued a statement late on Thursday lamenting what she called the shocking and tragic loss of life at the church.
Although she said she was glad to hear the suspect was in custody, she wrote: ‘This should never happen – in a church, in a store, in the city or anywhere.’
.
