Pastor says armed man in N.C. church disarmed with prayer
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. -- A Fayetteville city councilman says an armed stranger who walked into his church during a New Year's Eve service handed over his rifle and prayed with the pastor before police arrived.
The Fayetteville Observer reports that the unidentified man entered Heal the Land Outreach Ministries about 11:40 p.m. as City Councilman Larry Wright was delivering his sermon to about 60 people.
Wright says the man was carrying the rifle in one hand, pointed up, and an ammunition clip in the other.
The 57-year-old retired soldier says when he asked the man if he needed help, the stranger was calm.
CBS affiliate WRAL reports that Wright was the first to see the man.
"I asked him 'can I help you'," said Wright. "His next words were 'can you pray for me.' When he said that, then I knew everything was going to be alright."
The man then began crying and was escorted to a front pew.
Wright said police were planning to take the man to a mental health facility.
As WRAL spoke to Wright about security in churches following the incident, the man responsible for the scare returned to the church. But this time he was there to apologize.
The man, who had just been released from the hospital, asked not to be identified. But he said that his wife had just been diagnosed with a disease, he was struggling financially and is a veteran also struggling with PTSD and affording his medication, WRAL reports.
"I saw in his eyes hopelessness, hurt, pain, despair," said Wright to WRAL.
WRAL reports that the man is also a convicted felon who was given a gun. He said he came to the church because he thought it would be a safe place to get rid of the weapon without getting in trouble.
He faces no charges in connection to the incident.
On June 17 of last year, a 21-year-old white male walked into an black church in Charleston, South Carolina, and killed nine people. The young man, Dylann Roof, had previously uttered white supremacist statements, raising fears in black churches in the region.