Church Shooting in Tennessee

[SuperJerk 0]

Police: Church shooting suspect angry with job search, liberals

 

*NEW: Police: Man apparently targeted church because of its liberal stances

*NEW: Suspect accused in 2000 of threatening to kill then-wife

*Suspect's letter says he couldn't find job, hated liberals, police say

*Man, 58, arrested and charged after 2 killed, seven others injured in Unitarian church

 

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee (CNN) -- A man suspected of fatally shooting two adults at a Knoxville church Sunday was motivated by frustration over being unable to obtain a job and hatred for liberal stances, police said Monday.

 

A four-page letter found in the vehicle of Jim Adkisson -- who also is accused of injuring seven other adults -- indicated he may have targeted the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church because of recent publicity about the church's liberal policies.

 

"He did express that frustration, that the liberal movement was getting more jobs," Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV told reporters Monday. "And he felt like he was being kept out of the loop because of his age."

 

Police said Adkisson, 58, of Powell, Tennessee, walked into the church's sanctuary during a children's musical performance and fired a shotgun before being overpowered by congregants. Adkisson -- who police said wasn't a member of the church -- has been charged with one count of first-degree murder.

 

Killed in the shooting were Linda Kraeger, 61, and Greg McKendry, 60, police said. Witnesses said McKendry, an usher and board member at the church, tried to shield others when he was shot, according to The Associated Press.Watch scene at church after shooting »

 

Five of the seven surviving wounded were still in a hospital Monday. Officials at the University of Tennessee Medical Center said three patients were in critical condition and one is stable. The hospital would not release information about the fifth.

 

Owen said the case is being investigated as a hate crime. He said the letter, signed by Adkisson but not addressed to anyone, expressed hatred for gay people.

 

According to Out & About, a Tennessee gay newspaper based in Nashville, TVUUC was home to several gay and gay-friendly groups and recently posted a "gays welcome" sign "as part of its long-range planning to conduct more outreach and welcome" to gay men and lesbians.

 

The church, on its Web site, describes itself as a community that has worked for social change -- including desegregation, women's rights and gay rights -- since the 1950s.

 

Authorities also discovered a letter from the state government telling Adkisson he was having his food stamps reduced or eliminated, police said.

 

Owen said Adkisson has resided in the Knoxville area for three or four years and his last known employment was in 2006. Neighbors told The Associated Press that Adkisson had been a truck driver, and Owen added that Adkisson has an associate's degree in mechanical engineering.

 

"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Owen said.

 

Adkisson's letter also indicated "that he expected to be there shooting people until the police arrived and he fully expected to be killed by the responding police," Owen said.

 

Investigators found 76 shotgun shells in the church, Owen said. Three rounds were fired from a 12-gauge shotgun that was brought into the church hidden in a guitar case, police said.

 

There is "an indication he was not targeting the children," but that has not been conclusively determined, Owen said.

 

The shooting came eight years after Adkisson, according to divorce documents, threatened to kill his fourth wife and himself.

 

In a 2000 complaint filed in Tennessee's Anderson County, his then-wife, Liza Alexander, said she was "in fear for my life and what he might do." She also claimed that Adkisson "drinks heavily every day, and becomes belligerent, and makes threats."

 

"My husband, Jim David Adkisson told a friend of mine that one of his options is to blow my brains out and then blow his own brains out (I heard him say this)," Alexander wrote in her petition for a protection order, which she was granted.

 

The only criminal record authorities have found of Adkisson shows two instances of driving under the influence -- one in California "a number of years ago" and one "more recently" in Tennessee, Owen said.

 

Authorities have been told that Adkisson was once in the military, a member of the 101st Airborne Division, Owen said.

 

Lt. Col. Anne Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said there is a record of a Jim David Adkisson who served beginning in 1974. He was released from active duty in 1977 and discharged in 1980. He was a helicopter repairman with the 163rd Aviation Co. at Fort Campbell, Kentucky -- part of the 101st Airborne Division.

 

Adkisson's military record shows that in 1977 he was demoted from a specialist 4th class to private. Information about why Adkisson was demoted wasn't available.

 

Neighbors said Adkisson was quiet and kept to himself.

 

"He never went anywhere. He never had anybody over. Just, it was really quiet. He rode a motorcycle and you know he would go out on the weekends on his motorcycle, but other than that, you never heard from him," Melissa Coker told WVLT-TV.

 

Coker told the AP that Adkisson had been a truck driver, but she didn't think he'd been working steadily in the past six months.

 

"He's just a really, really nice guy," Coker told the AP.

 

Adkisson's landlord said she did not know him well enough to make any comments on his character but said he was a good tenant who paid his bills, according to CNN affiliate WBIR-TV.

 

Bail was set at $1 million late Sunday.

 

Police said people were recording videos of the children's performance when the shooting happened, and investigators were reviewing the videos. Information on what, if anything, the videos show of the shooting wasn't immediately available.

 

The church's minister, Chris Buice, said he was on vacation when the shooting happened but rushed back when he heard what occurred. Sunday afternoon, after McKendry's death but before Kraeger's, he spoke briefly to reporters.

 

"Please pray for this congregation, because we are grieving the loss of a wonderful man," Buice said as he choked back tears.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/28/church...ting/index.html

 

I'll ignore the political questions surrounding this and focus on the sadness I feel that my religion (or any religion) is being targetted by fanatics.

[At Home 0]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=RssIN3ustUw

[EricMM 0]

Now now, if only everyone in the church had been packing heat, this wouldn't have happened!

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

That's actually true.

 

 

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

That's why I don't go to church.

[BX 0]

Are you sure this didn't take place in (Mike)SC?

[SuperJerk 0]

That's actually true.

 

I disagree.

 

The idea that having a gun makes you safer is based on the premises that either someone shooting people in public would be prevented from doing so by either someone taking him out first (impossible in this scenario unless someone knew he was going to the shooting before he started doing it), or he'd be too scared to do the shooting because of the consequence of being shot himself (also not the case because this man wanted to be shot himself).

 

Unless the hypothetical guns in question came equipped with magic forcefields that keep you from being shot by other people, adding more guns to the equation wouldn't have prevented this from happening.

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

Yeah, I guess. Didn't see the bit where he was expecting the police to kill him.

 

Magic forcefield guns would be pretty fuckin' sweet, though.