COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A gunman shot four staff members at a missionary training center near Denver early Sunday, killing two, after being told he couldn’t spend the night. About 12 hours later and 65 miles away, a gunman fatally shot a parishioner at a megachurch and wounded four other people before a guard killed him, police said.
The police chief in Arvada, a suburb about 15 miles west of Denver where the mission workers were shot, said the shootings may be related to those at the Colorado Springs church but declined to elaborate. The mission training program in Arvada has a small office on the Colorado Springs church campus.
Police did say they didn’t have a motive for the shootings.
Witness descriptions differed in each incident. A handgun was used in the shootings at the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada, while a rifle was used at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, police said.
The gunman at the Colorado Springs church 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, Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers said. Four others were wounded, Myers said.
The church’s 11 a.m. service had recently ended, and hundreds of people were milling about when the gunman opened fire. Nearby were parents picking up their children from the nursery.
Police arrived to find that the gunman had been killed by a member of the church’s armed security staff, Myers said.
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.”
Security at the church had been beefed up after the early morning shootings in Arvada, Boyd said.
That shooting happened about 12:30 a.m. at the mission center in Arvada, a Denver suburb, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said. The center is on the grounds of the Faith Bible Chapel.
A man and a woman were killed and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members of the center, said Paul Filidis, a Colorado Springs-based spokesman with Youth With a Mission.
Arvada Police Chief Don Wick said the suspect spent several minutes speaking with people inside the dorm. Peter Warren, director of Youth With a Mission Denver, said the man asked whether he could spend the night. Several youths called on Tiffany Johnson, the center’s director of hospitality.
“The director of hospitality was called. That’s when he opened fire,” Warren said. Johnson, 26, was killed. Also killed was Philip Crouse, 24.
Warren said he didn’t know whether any of the students or staff knew the gunman. “We don’t know why” he came to the dormitory, Warren said.
Witnesses told police that the gunman was a 20-year-old white male, wearing a dark jacket and skull cap.
A police investigator photographs possible evidence at a missionary training center dormitory in Arvada, Colo., where two people were shot and killed early Sunday.
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