Police kill female shooter at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church; 5-year-old injuredA boy and a 56-year-old man were wounded in the shootout with off-duty officers, police say
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/02/11/shooting-lakewood-church-joel-osteen/
A woman wielding a long gun is dead and the child who was with her is in critical condition after the woman walked into a Texas evangelical megachurch on Sunday afternoon in Houston and opened fire, police said.
Off-duty law enforcement officers confronted the woman shortly after she entered the massive Lakewood Church building just before 2 p.m., when the church was changing between English and Spanish-speaking services, according to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner.
The woman fired several rounds and indicated she had a bomb before officers fired back, killing her and injuring the 5-year-old boy who was with her. Police did not elaborate on the child’s relationship to the woman.
The child was taken to a children’s hospital in critical condition. A 56-year-old man who was attending services suffered a gunshot wound to the hip, city fire officials said.
The shooting set off panic inside the cavernous nondenominational church, which is home to Joel Osteen’s global ministry, welcomes nearly 45,000 worshipers weekly and broadcasts to more than 100 countries. It is the one of the largest megachurches in the nation. Witnesses told reporters that they barricaded themselves inside closets and took cover behind pillars as the shots rang out.
A live stream of the service on YouTube captured the sound of loud bangs coming from behind a speaker in front of the camera giving announcements in Spanish. Law enforcement evacuated businesses in a busy commercial center of Houston amid early reports of a second shooter. However, the situation involved just one shooter, Finner said.
A visibly shaken Osteen said during a news conference Sunday that he did not know why such things happen but was assured that “God is in control.”
While fans of all faiths read and watch Osteen for his general, encouraging words, he is controversial among other Christians who note his near-total silence on topics such as sin and doctrine.
A search warrant executed on Monday identified the shooter as Genesse Moreno, 36, who records show had a criminal record that included assault, fraud and drug charges.
Police and fire officials said the woman was wearing a trench coat and carried a backpack when she entered the church. Finner said she sprayed a substance as she entered the west side of the building, which prompted police to run a complete sweep of the downtown building that was once a basketball stadium. A bomb-detecting robot was also deployed as a precaution to inspect the white vehicle they say the woman drove to the church.
Officers from multiple agencies executed a search warrant on a home about 50 miles north of Houston early Monday in connection with the shooting, according to Mike Holley, a spokesman for Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office. They searched for evidence connected to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon and a hoax bomb, Holley said.
Lakewood Church is not holding in-person services on Monday, a staff member said.
Finner asked Houstonians to pray for the child wounded in the attack.
The newly elected Democratic mayor of Houston, John Whitmire, who ran on a law-and-order platform, praised the Houston area agencies for their prompt and collaborative response to the active shooter.
“It’s unfortunate that on a day we want to attend church and watch America’s No. 1 sports event that we find ourselves gathering to respond to this tragedy,” he said.
Houston police and the mayor plan to hold a briefing Monday at 1:30 p.m. Central time.
Lifeway Research, owned by the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, did a survey of Protestant pastors last year. It found that by far the most popular security plans pastors have are an “intentional plan for an active shooter” and armed congregants. Fifty-four percent of the pastors polled said they have a plan involving armed churchgoers. Three years earlier, that number was 45 percent, Lifeway said.
HOUSTON — The person who opened fire Sunday in one of the country’s largest megachurches — using an AR-15 adorned with the word “Palestine” — was subject to an emergency detention order in 2016 due to mental health issues and was caught up in a fraught dispute with her ex-husband and his family, officials said Monday.
Genesse Moreno, 36, pulled up outside Lakewood Church about 2 p.m., walked inside with her 7-year-old son just before the start of a Spanish-language service and started shooting. The gunfire set off a panic in the cavernous building, with two off-duty officers confronting Moreno, who was wearing a trench coat, according to police and a search warrant executed early Monday.
In the ensuing moments, officials said, the boy was shot in the head and critically injured, and a male church employee was shot in the hip. Moreno was pronounced dead at the scene by the fire department.
Local and federal law enforcement officials, speaking at a news conference, said they believe Moreno acted alone. They said that a search of her home in suburban Conroe, Tex., about 50 miles north of Houston, had found “some antisemitic writings” that investigators will be “delving into.”
“We believe there was a familial dispute that has taken place through her ex-husband and her ex-husband’s family, who are Jewish. That may be where some of this stems from,” said Christopher Hassig, commander of the Houston Police Department’s homicide special investigations unit.
Moreno was identified via a driver’s license, said officials, who noted that she had multiple aliases, including “Jeffrey Escalante,” and used male and female pronouns.
She had also brought a .22-caliber rifle to the church but did not fire it, officials said. The car she drove there is being processed for evidence.
At the time of the shooting, Moreno had a backpack, yellow rope and “substances consistent with the manufacture of explosive devices, which appeared to be a detonation cord,” according to police and the warrant. Investigators searched Moreno’s house — in Conroe’s Sterling Place subdivision — for evidence of a bomb hoax, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and/or possession of prohibited weapons, the warrant said.
Moreno purchased the AR-15 rifle in December, and officials were still tracing it and trying to determine how she purchased both guns.
The injured child remained hospitalized in critical condition on Monday, “fighting for his life,” according to Police Chief Troy Finner. The other victim has been released from the hospital.
The chief said it wasn’t clear why the shooter targeted Lakewood or if she had any connection to the church. “I can’t speculate. It could be any place of worship. Bad people or individuals suffering from mental illness we all need to look out for,” he said.
Of the two off-duty officers who immediately responded, Adrian Herrera is employed by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and Christopher Moreno (no relation to the shooter) by the Houston police force. The latter was working security for the church and wearing a body camera; investigators are now reviewing footage from that as well as from church security cameras.
Finner said Moreno’s relatives were cooperating with the investigation. He said it wasn’t clear who shot the 7-year-old.
Moreno’s social media indicated she worked in real estate. She had been convicted or pleaded guilty in the Houston area to misdemeanor assault, fraud and drug charges, records show.
At the briefing, Finner and the FBI special agent in charge were asked how Moreno was able to obtain guns when records show that a weapon was taken away from her in 2022 and that the FBI had questioned her attempt to purchase a weapon last year. Generally, Texas has few restrictions on gun purchases, with no firearm sales registry, no required waiting period to buy a gun and no red-flag law guarding against mentally ill or violent people having weapons.
“That’s part of the investigation,” Finner said. “That’s the challenges that we have. That’s what law enforcement talk about all the time. We need to make sure everything is tight. We are not people standing up here against Second Amendment rights, but [against] people who are suffering from mental illness, criminals. We’re looking at that.”
Lakewood Church, the home of Joel Osteen’s global ministry, is a former basketball arena with nearly 45,000 worshipers weekly. The church was not holding in-person services Monday, a staff member said.
Carl Chinn, founder of Faith Based Security Network, a national nonprofit of faith-based groups that shares security information — and includes Lakewood — said Monday that the two men who stopped the shooter were part of the church’s intentional security program.
Intentional programs at faith-based organizations — especially at large churches, such as Lakewood — usually involve members who are in law enforcement, Chinn said. The average member would probably have been informed not to jump up and get involved in an incident, so that multiple people aren’t firing outside a coordinated plan, he noted.
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