Don't want to carry in church ? -- Church Shooting: 8 dead / 4 wounded (merged)

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Phantom warrior and myself have had this discussion before.

IIRC the concensus was that BGs dont give a rats butt what they are attacking anymore so the gun goes with.
 
Well, it's a growing problem that people are more and more inured to being searched as they enter places. They do it in office buildings in NYC as a matter of routine, so it would not be possible to "just keep it to yourself" that you're entering armed.

How long before churches decide to have people checked at metal detectors? :banghead: In the name of "safety," don'tcha know.


-Jeffrey
 
I love this quote by police chief Daniel Tushaus, taken from the story in that link:

"The suspect is the person we believe is responsible for the shooting incident."


Really? The suspect is the guy you think did it? Wow, who'da thunk it...

-Jeffrey
 
They were not in a church building but at a hotel for a church meeting.
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What does that matter? A "church" is the collection of people there, not a building. There are many churches that meet in places that serve as something other than church buildings and they are still churches even though they don't have their own building. Either way the guy was a member of the church and it appears he specifically went there to do the shooting. It wouldn't have mattered even if they did have their own building.

There have been other shootings in churches in recent years as well. There was one in Houston at some point not all that long ago.

brad cook
 
You mean god doesn't protect his people while their in a church? Whoda thunk it?
 
Church Shooting: 8 dead / 4 wounded in GUN-FREE Zone.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/wauk/mar05/309035.asp ...
Posted: March 12, 2005

"IT'S HUMAN CARNAGE"

8 dead, 4 wounded as New Berlin man opens fire in church meeting at Brookfield hotel

By CROCKER STEPHENSON
[email protected]


A man neighbors described as quiet and devout opened fire Saturday on a group of men, women and children attending a weekly church service at a Brookfield hotel, killing eight people - including himself - and seriously wounding four others.

"He planned to shoot us all," said Chandra Frazier, a 31-year-old woman attending the Living Church of God gathering.

Frazier said some 80 members of the church, which has been holding services at the Sheraton Hotel, 375 S. Moorland Road, for years, came from Illinois and Wisconsin. They were planning to hold a fashion show and a pot luck dinner Saturday and were in high spirits.

Although there was no known motive, Frazier said the man believed responsible for the shootings, Terry Ratzmann, 44, of New Berlin, was suffering from depression and was upset about a taped sermon he had heard a couple of weeks before by one the church's chief evangelists, Roderick C. Meredith.

"He was always a peculiar guy," she said. "But I never pegged him for a murderer."

Frazier had arrived at the service about eight minutes late. She took a seat in the third row from the back and was looking through her Bible and at some notes when she heard a series of loud pops.

"I jumped out of my seat, and I was like, 'Oh, Lord!' "

Frazier's 61-year-old mother, Ella Frazier, said the shots came from the back of the room.

"It sounded like an echo, like an explosion," Ella Frazier said.

"Someone said, 'It's for real.' We hit the floor and we kept hearing shots."

Some people sought cover, others attempted to protect loved ones. One man, Chandra Frazier said, yelled "Terry, stop! Think about what you're doing!"

Ratzmann, armed with a handgun, paused at least once to reload. Chandra Frazier said she dove beneath the chair of a man who was then shot.

"There were so many shots," she said. "Everybody was screaming. It was mayhem."

Then, the shooting came to an abrupt ending.

"I just remember silence after that," she said. "After that last bullet, it was dead silence."


Gunman acted alone

Besides Ratzmann, four of the victims died at the hotel. According to several church members, they were:
  • James Gregory, 17, of Gurnee, Ill., son of the church's pastor.
  • Harold Diekmeier, 74, of Delafield.
  • Gloria Critari, 55, of Cudahy.
  • Bart Oliver, 15, of Waukesha.

Three others died at Froedtert Memorial Lutheran Hospital.

According to church members, those victims were:
  • Randy L. Gregory, 50, of Gurnee, Ill., the regional pastor of the Living Church of God.
  • Richard Reeves, 58, of Cudahy.
  • A 44-year-old man from Hartford.

Three survivors are females, ages 10, 20 and 52. The fourth is a 20-year-old-man.

A Froedtert spokeswoman said late Saturday that two victims were in satisfactory condition, one in critical. Another victim was taken to Children's Hospital of Wisconsin, police said, though a hospital spokeswoman would not confirm that any of the victims were there. It is one of the worst mass murders in state history, and the second fatal hotel shooting in less than a year. Two guests were killed at an Oak Creek hotel in November.

"It's heartbreaking, it's overwhelming. It's human carnage," Waukesha County District Attorney Paul Bucher said after visiting the scene late Saturday afternoon.

Police said the gunman acted alone.

"There is nobody else being sought at this time as a suspect," said Daniel Tushaus, chief of the Brookfield Police Department.


Suspect lived with mother

Ratzmann, 44, lived with his mother and sister in New Berlin. Neighbors said Ratzmann was a devoted member of the church.

Ratzmann's silver pickup truck was towed away from the hotel hours after the shooting. New Berlin police closed down Ratzmann's neighborhood while investigators searched his house.

New Berlin mayor Ted Wysocki said officers from his city had been called in to help after the shooting.

"We're doing an investigation at the behest of the Brookfield Police Department," Wysocki said. "They told us that there is potential of a suspect in New Berlin."

Neighbors in the wooded subdivision said that they hadn't seen much of Ratzmann.

Joe Blasczyk, 30, who grew up in neighborhood, said Ratzmann "was the loner type. He just kind of gave you a weird gaze."

Neighbor Victor Seidl, who has lived near Ratzmann for almost 30 years, said Ratzmann "kind of kept to himself."

"They did their thing and we did our thing," Seidl said

Brookfield police received reports of shots fired at the hotel at 12:51 p.m., Tushaus said. A stream of ambulances from several agencies raced to the hotel and removed victims.

Froedtert physician Charles Cady, who treated three of the victims, said that six of them arrived at the hospital within a span of minutes. About 25 physicians, nurses and others were on hand to provide care.

"This did test our system and take us, I think, close to our limits," he said.


Surreal scene at hotel

The hotel took on a surreal quality in the shooting's aftermath.

Families with young hockey players, in town for a tournament, milled about in the lobby. Many of the kids ran and splashed at the swimming pool. The Catholic Knights held their regional conference, capped with a Mass in one of the conference rooms, and a lunch. Down the hall, cordoned off, were the bodies of the slain.

Shoppers and other curious people filled the parking lot for a view of the crime scene. Some stopped by to drop off flowers. One woman arrived with sandwiches and hot drinks for those keeping watch.

Bridget Healy, 7, from Chicago, had just left her hotel room with her brother, Liam, 9, when they heard a woman scream to call 911. The girl said she ran and told her mother.

"She was pretty shaken up," said Bridget's mother, Janet.

Carol Schuster, an employee of Catholic Knights, said the organization was in the middle of its lunch when hotel employees came in to tell them what had happened. After a moment of silence, the meeting continued.

Police originally roped off the hotel, not allowing anyone but police officials to come and go from the building. But, after about an hour, the ropes were removed from all but the back of the hotel, and people began coming and going freely. One man, presumably unaware of the drama inside, approached the desk clerk and asked if they had any weekend specials available.

Some guests remained locked in their rooms after police surrounded the building and would not allow anyone to enter or leave.

Karen Suick, 48, said she arrived at the hotel Friday night with 15 players and parents for a hockey tournament.

"One of our hockey dad's two daughters are still in there," she said. "They called his cell phone. They were OK, but they were told to go back to their room. So that's what they did."

Some family members held nervous vigil in their cars in the hours after the shooting. Two sisters, one from Okauchee and the other from Racine, waited patiently for their family members. The Okauchee woman had a 14-year-old daughter inside. The Racine woman was waiting for her husband and father-in-law.

They said they had just dropped off their family members and had gone shopping at nearby Brookfield Square when they got a cell phone call from the Racine woman's husband saying that there had been a shooting. By late afternoon, passersby had begun a memorial next to the hotel. Flowers, a foam plastic cross and some stuffed animals were placed on a snowbank near a tree.

Around 6 p.m. many of the church members present at the shooting were being allowed to leave after being interviewed by investigators. One group, who declined to speak to reporters, included a young girl, about 7 years old, wearing white high-heeled shoes, an older woman with a walker, and man who looked to be about 70 years old.

During his afternoon news conference, Tushaus said, "Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of this crime."

Six hours later, the police tape came down, but the prayers continued.

Journal Sentinel reporters Meg Kissinger, Lisa Sink, Rick Romell, Graeme Zielinski, Marie Rohde, Dave Umhoefer, David Doege, Reid J. Epstein, Scott Williams, Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Nahal Toosi, Kelly Wells and Derrick Nunnally contributed to this report.
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... Only one CCW present MIGHT have been able to saved the lives of all those that were killed. How many times does something like this have to happen before people wake up and realize that gun-free zones target the wrong people?
 
Last October, I bought a Fobus holster for my XD at Knob Creek. The next morning, I wore it to Church under my suit jacket for a "test drive". 99% of the congregation is pro-gun (!), but I kept it concealed until after Mass.

Outside afterwards, I usually have coffee, smoke and talk with a few friends. One of them asked me how the show went. I mentioned a few things and then pulled my jacket back to show them my new holster. Everyone liked it, but one guy almost freaked out: "You brought a GUN to Church!?" I politely told him to get a grip.

Next time the subject comes up, I'll remind him of this tragedy in Wisconsin. If I recall correctly, didn't something similar happen about 6 years ago in south-eastern KY?
 
Very true. CCW could have ended this and saved lives. Not to long ago, the Gov'r and his band of Dems went and killed a CCW bill in the state legislature. Can they was these victims' blood from their hands?
 
I live about four miles from that hotel. This is the largest news event around here for quite a while (outside of the corruption of Wisconsin's election system.)

This guy killed/wounded 12 people about as fast as he could pull the trigger--it was all point-blank range. With the exception of the time he took to reload, there wasn't much opportunity for someone to turn, draw, aim, and fire. You have to figure about 7-10 seconds from start to finish.

While I am a proponent of CCW and consider it a right which has been trampled by the State of Wisconsin, it's hard to figure how it would have been helpful in this particular case.
 
By the way, at a hotel only about ONE mile from my home, there have been two or three "shots fired" calls in the last two weeks--not really covered by the local press.

Seems to be a lot of gunplay going on out there lately--
 
While I am a proponent of CCW and consider it a right which has been trampled by the State of Wisconsin, it's hard to figure how it would have been helpful in this particular case.
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I don't know about you, but it takes me a hell of a lot less than twelve seconds to draw and fire. I could have saved a few lives, I'm sure, but even if I had just saved one, wouldn't it have been worth it?
 
ninenot said:
... While I am a proponent of CCW and consider it a right which has been trampled by the State of Wisconsin, it's hard to figure how it would have been helpful in this particular case ...
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Maybe it wouldn't have helped but it sure as heck wouldn't have hurt and it MIGHT HAVE helped.
 
September 1999, 8 dead in Ft. Worth Church Shooting

October 2003, 3 dead in Atlanta church shooting

July 1999, Church shooting in Bloomington, IN - not sure how many killed

March 1999, 3 killed in Gonzales, LA church shooting

March 2003, 1 killed 7 injured in Rochester Hills, MA church shooting

June 1980, 5 killed, 11 injured in Daingerfield, TX church shooting

March 2000, at least 4 injured not sure if any deaths in Pasadena, TX church shooting

March 2005, 7 killed in Wisconsin church shooting

Yup...I don't see any reason to carry to church.

brad cook
 
I agree that CCW (and a well-trained, armed citizen) could well have prevented the last 5 rounds of fire from the shooter.

And that's the argument I will make, loudly, to anyone who will listen.

The key, of course, is "well-trained."
 
Unfortunately a lot of Churches view the use of lethal force as contrdictory to Biblical teaching.

Also some states don't allow CCW in a church. In MI the law says that concealed weapons are restricted in ... "Any property or facility owned or operated by a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, or other place of worship, unless the presiding official allows concealed weapons".

My guess that this is a case of a husband that doesn't attend with his wife getting upset over some comment, real or imagined, and going to settle a perceived score.

Very tragic.
 
I've always been under the impression that as long as you have permission from the pastor/elders of the church to carry in the church it's fine. I go to a very large church, and if noone knows I have it then it doesn't really matter if I do or not now does it?
 
Unfortunately a lot of Churches view the use of lethal force as contrdictory to Biblical teaching.
Click to expand...

If you disagreed with a church on such an important issue, wouldn't that compel one to leave the church in favor of one that has a more agreeable policy, rather than hypocritically modifying your beliefs one day a week and continuing to go there? It makes me wonder why you are going there in the first place. Do you simply belive you have to? Any organization with which I disagree on such a vital issue does not continue to recieve my patronage, and is one I do not continue to claim or associate my philosophy with.

If I had a problem carrying in church, I would have a problem carrying anywhere.
 
ninenot

You are right a well trained CCW would have been able to stop this between the second or so round fired. I have been practicing for and competeing in IDPA for 3 years off and on. And I am only about the middle of the pack in our club, but my draw from cover is 1.2 to 1.3 seconds day in and day out. Factor in suprize and other situational things it well could be more like 2.5 -3.0 seconds before I could bet on drawing and shooting. But that still my have been able to cut the death toll down by half or more.

This is a truly sad story, but it will still be looked apon as " One more reason that guns are bad" by the liberial left that controls the media.
 
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