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Gunmen hit church, missionary center

A police helicopter flies above the New Life Church in Colorado Springs on Sunday after a man went inside and opened fire, killing a parishioner before being fatally shot by a guard. Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Judith Kohler Associated Press
A police helicopter flies above the New Life Church in Colorado Springs on Sunday after a man went inside and opened fire, killing a parishioner before being fatally shot by a guard. Associated Press (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

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. Arvada authorities said no one had been captured in the shootings there.

The gunman at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs was shot and killed by a church security guard after entering the church’s main foyer with a 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. Police arrived to find that the gunman had been killed by a member of the church’s armed security staff, Myers said.

Gov. Bill Ritter ordered state authorities to help investigate. The FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting.

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 president of the National Association of Evangelicals, admitted committing undisclosed “sexual immorality.”

The New Life church is one of Colorado’s largest with about 10,000 members. The mission training program in Arvada has a small office at the church’s World Prayer Center on the New Life campus.

About 7,000 people were on the Colorado Springs campus at the time of the shooting, Senior Pastor Brady Boyd said. Security had been beefed up after the early morning shootings in Arvada, he said.

That attack happened about 12:30 a.m. at the Youth With a Mission center, police spokeswoman Susan Medina said.

A man and woman were killed, and two men were wounded, Medina said. All four were staff members of the center, said spokesman Paul Filidis.