Colorado Church Shootings – Search Warrant Executed In New Life Church Shooting
December 9, 2007 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
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UPDATE 12/10/07 8:00 am MST: Matt Murray 24, son of a Denver Neurologist and living with his parents in their Englewood home, has been identified as the shooter in the Colorado Church shootings at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs.
UPDATE 12/10/07 8:00 am MST: The home that was searched is owned by a Doctor from Sky Ridge Medical Center. No name has yet been released.
UPDATE 12/10/07 6:50 am MST:A home in Englewood Colorado is being searched in connection with the two shootings. Live Video Feed is up at MyFoxCommunity
UPDATE 12/09/07 12:25 pm MST: A second victim has died from the shooting at New Life Church.
UPDATE 12/09/07 11:25 pm MST: The investigation has shifted to unincorporated Arapaphoe County, where authorities are searching a home in connection to Sunday’s shootings.
Arvada Dep. Chief Gary Creager said he was still unsure whether the two cases are connected, but that officials are looking into the similarities.
“We are very interested,” Creager said. “That’s why we’re there.”
A woman who said she is related to the family living at the home said she has a 24-year-old brother who lives there. He is a computer programming student at a community college. Another brother is attending college in Oklahoma, she said.
About 25 officers were searching the home close to midnight including those from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Arapahoe County bomb squad. Authorities were carrying out boxes from the home, and snapping pictures.
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UPDATE 12/09/07 10:55 pm MST: Video of 10:00pm Press Conference available from MyFoxColorado
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UPDATE 12/09/07 10:27 pm MST: Bomb squad has arrived at warrant search site in Greenwood.
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UPDATE 12/09/07 10:20 pm MST: Arvada Police are helping Colorado Springs Police serve a search warrant on a home in Arapahoe County in connection with the shootings at New Life Church.
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UPDATE: Two people are now dead, including the suspect, in Sunday’s shooting at New Life Church in Colorado. Four other people were taken to area hospitals. Some of the four have life-threatening injuries. The gunman was shot and killed by a church security guard after entering the church’s main foyer with high-powered rifle shortly before 1 p.m. and opening fire.
Three people were taken to Penrose Main Hospital. Officials there tell 11 News one person is in critical condition, and two are stable. Family members have gathered at the hospital.
Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Meyers says the call came in at about 1:10 p.m. and the first officers arrived on scene within three minutes. Meyers says several suspicious devices were also located, and police and fire crews have been doing a methodical building by building search.
Calling it an “on-going” investigation,” police have not released any names.
Lt. Fletcher Howard with the Colorado Springs police says the shooting happened at the parking lot of the church.
All Pikes Peak Community College campuses are closed and activities for this evening are canceled because police are telling family and church members to gather there.
Police may get a warrant to search that vehicle.
Police say they will update the situation at 10 p.m.
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UPDATE: One suspect in custody.
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There is no known connection yet between this shooting and the shooting that took place earlier today at the Youth With A Mission Missionary Center.
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A gunman opened fire in the parking lot of athe New Life Church in Colorado Springs church on Sunday, striking four people, the church’s pastor said. Police are said to have also discovered an improvised explosive device inside the church, and were searching for a second suspect and a car that may contain other explosives.
The conditions of the people shot outside the New Life Church were not known, El Paso County Sheriff’s Lt. Lari Sevene said.
Police sealed off the church, but it was not clear whether any parishioners were still inside.
Lance Coles, a pastor at New Life Church, told The Associated Press he received a report that a man was shooting at people in the church parking lot and that the gunman may have entered the church.
It was not immediately known whether the shootings were related to an earlier shooting about 70 miles away in the Denver suburb of Arvada. There, two people died and two were wounded early Sunday when a gunman opened fire in a dormitory at a missionary training center on the campus of Faith Bible Chapel.
New Life was founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, who was fired last year after a former male prostitute alleged he had a three-year cash-for-sex relationship with him.
Haggard, then the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted committing undisclosed “sexual immorality.”
The church is one of Colorado’s largest with about 10,000 members.
