Seems that, had a single other church-goer been armed, this psycho's career as a mass murdere would have been over MUCH sooner.
Sheeesh...and here we are, at least some of us are sitting ducks just like them.
--------------------------------------
>GONZALES, La. (AP)--The pastor had just started reading a Bible
>lesson about being born again when the gunman kicked open the doors,
>fired twice into the ceiling and ordered everybody to hit the floor.
>
>He then marched down the aisle, shooting between the benches as
>screaming parishioners scattered in horror and pausing once to
>calmly reload. Among the crowd, police said, were the man's wife
>and child.
>
>"His little boy turned and said, `Daddy.' That's when he shot.
>He hit his wife first and then the baby," congregation member
>Lolita Enkadi said.
>
>"And then he just started emptying his gun. He shot one in the
>back of the head. We were all trying to get down. I just lay on
>the bench and started praying."
>
>The gunman's two family members and another member of the New St.
>John Fellowship Baptist Church congregation were killed. Four others
>were injured, two of them critically.
>
>Police say Shon Miller also shot his mother-in-law to death at
>home, before traveling the few blocks to the one-story stucco church
>20 miles southeast of Baton Rouge.
>
>"The safest place in world I always thought was a church and now
>that sanctuary has been broken," police Chief Bill Landry said.
>"We'll all be a long time getting over this."
>
>Officers said it took three hours of searching around the single-
>family homes and winter cabbage gardens near the church in this
>small town of 7,000 before they found Miller.
>
>When they discovered him in a shed about 100 yards away, he tried
>to kill himself, Landry said. An officer blasted the pistol out
>of his hand with a shotgun at close range, wounding him. Miller's
>condition was not released.
>
>Miller will be charged with four counts of first-degree murder
>and three counts of attempted first-degree murder, Landry said.
>
>When the firing started, about 50 to 75 worshippers were inside
>the building where the congregation is holding services while the
>big brick church down the street is renovated.
>
>The Rev. Wilbert Holmes said he thought it was some kind of prank
>when the gunman burst through the foyer doors.
>
>"Then he started shooting," Holmes said "I would think I was
>his easiest target. Everybody else was sitting down."
>
>But his targets were in the congregation.
>
>The shooting lasted long enough for the gunman to empty one clip
>in the semi-automatic pistol and then reload and continue shooting
>into the pews. As he left, Holmes heard him mumble something like,
>"That will show you."
>
>Authorities said the other victims included a 53-year-old woman
>and 19-year-old man. Two people were hospitalized in critical
>condition,and two teen-agers were in good condition--one of them Ms.
>Enkadi's 16-year-old son, Donald Rideau, who was shot in the leg.
[This message has been edited by cornered rat (edited March 11, 1999).]
