Fort Worth Church Shares Tragic Tie With Charleston Church
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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - "He came in there," Jeff Laster said as he pointed to one of the glass doors at the south entrance to Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth.
Laster clearly remembers greeting 47-year-old Larry Ashbrook at the door of Wedgwood Baptist Church sixteen years ago. And he can still see the 9mm pistol.
"He pulled it out from underneath a sweatshirt and he just aimed it at me sideways and shot twice, hit me once in the side and once in the arm," Laster recalled.
Ashbrook shot and killed a woman before bursting into the sanctuary packed with people attending a youth service.
"And he fired one from there and it went all the way down and hit that door," Laster said describing the first shot which traveled from the back of the sanctuary diagonally across the room into a door in the front - somehow without hitting anyone. The hole from the 'miracle bullet' is still in the door.
Not all of the gunfire would be so inaccurate. Ashbrook killed seven people before killing himself.
The church pastor arrived minutes later to find chaos outside the church: a makeshift triage treating wounded, crying young people and panicked parents.
"My youth pastor came up who was presiding here and just fell in my arms," recounted Al Meredith, Senior Pastor. "I said, 'Tell me who we've lost.' And he started naming all the different people that we lost."
People here know the suffering the victims and their families in Charleston are going through right now. And they know the healing takes a very long time.
"You know I hear people saying today that they're praying for this church," Laster said "That's great. But I hope they'll continue that. This is a long process."
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