A gunman opened fire during a service at a suburban Detroit church on Sunday, wounding one person before he was shot and killed by a security guard, police said.
The person shot in the leg was the security guard, according to what the church’s pastor told the Detroit News. No one else was hurt in part because a church member ran the attacker over with a truck, said the CrossPointe Community church pastor Bobby Kelly Jr.
The shooting happened at CrossPointe in Wayne, a city of about 17,000 people, at about 11am, Kelly Jr told the Detroit News.
Kelly said the security guard had time to shoot the attacker because the attacker was run over by a church member driving a truck.
“He was run over by one of our members who saw this happening when he was coming into church,” Kelly said to the newspaper.
Police described the slain intruder as a 31-year-old white male. In a statement shortly before noon on Sunday, authorities asked the public to avoid the area around the church, saying the investigation into the violence there remained under active investigation.
About 150 people were attending the service, including children, Kelly said. Congregants’ startled reaction to the gunfire on Sunday was captured on the service’s online live stream.
Kelly told the Detroit News that members of the CrossPointe church started a security team about a decade ago in response to violence at other places of worship around the US, although his congregation in Wayne had not received threats of violence.
“We are sitting ducks to someone who wants to come and do harm,” Kelly said to the newspaper.
Kelly reportedly added that the children in attendance on Sunday were “doing good” after the attack and that congregants were supporting each other. He told the Detroit News his church would “put a formal plan in place for the aftermath” of Sunday.
