On September 15, 1999, a

mass shooting There is a lack of consensus on how to define a mass shooting. Most terms define a minimum of three or four victims of gun violence (not including the shooter or in an inner city) in a short period of time, although an Australian study from 200 ...

occurred at Wedgwood Baptist Church in

Fort Worth, Texas Fort Worth is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Texas and the 13th-largest city in the United States. It is the county seat of Tarrant County, covering nearly into four other counties: Denton, Johnson, Parker, and Wise. According ...

. 47-year-old Larry Gene Ashbrook entered during a

See You at the Pole See You at the Pole is an annual gathering of thousands of Christian students at school flag poles, churches, and the Internet for the purposes of worship and prayer. It is now an international event; in 2005, over two million students in the U.S. p ...

Rally featuring a concert by the

Christian rock Christian rock is a form of rock music that features lyrics focusing on matters of Christian faith, often with an emphasis on Jesus, typically performed by self-proclaimed Christian individuals. The extent to which their lyrics are explicitly Ch ...

group Forty Days, where he killed seven people and wounded eight others before committing

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

Shooting

Ashbrook interrupted a teen prayer rally in the Wedgwood Baptist Church, slamming his hand on a door to make his presence known. Spouting anti-Baptist rhetoric, he opened fire with a

9 mm 9 (nine) is the natural number following and preceding . Evolution of the Arabic digit In the beginning, various Indians wrote a digit 9 similar in shape to the modern closing question mark without the bottom dot. The Kshatrapa, Andhra and ...

semi-automatic handgun and a .380-caliber handgun. He reloaded several times during the shooting; three empty magazines were found at the scene. Seven people were killed, four of whom were teenagers (a 14-year-old boy, two 14-year-old girls and a 17-year-old boy). Three people sustained major injuries while four others received relatively minor injuries. At Ashbrook's home, police found a pipe, end caps to enclose the pipe, gunpowder and a fuse. Ashbrook had thrown a

pipe bomb A pipe bomb is an improvised explosive device which uses a tightly sealed section of pipe (material), pipe filled with an explosive material. The containment provided by the pipe means that simple Explosive material#Low explosives, low explosi ...

into the church, but it exploded vertically, and did not injure anyone. During the shooting, Ashbrook was confronted by a 19-year-old former football lineman, Jeremiah "Jeremy" Neitz, who recounted the ensuing conversation for the ''

Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely by advertising ...

'': Ashbrook fired several more rounds and yelled, "This

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...

is bullshit." Neitz replied, "Sir, what you need is

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

in your life." Neitz asked Ashbrook "What about you?" Ashbrook replied, "Fuck off" and "I can't believe you believe in this junk." He then sat down and shot himself. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine described accounts of the confrontation as "unconfirmed" and possibly "pious invention", but the ''Houston Press'' wrote that the story had been confirmed, quoting the Fort Worth police detective who had interviewed Neitz: "Maybe he did frustrate Ashbrook with what he was saying. There's no way we'll ever really know. All I can say is that I'm impressed by what he did that evening. It was a very brave thing. You have to admire that."

Victims

Perpetrator

The shooter was 47-year-old Larry Gene Ashbrook (July 10, 1952 – September 15, 1999).

Personality and mental state

Nine years before the shooting, Ashbrook's mother died. This reportedly sent him into a cycle of erratic and frightening behavior. Ashbrook lived for many years with his father, Jack D. Ashbrook. Across the street from the Ashbrooks' home, neighbors said they saw Ashbrook treat his father violently but were afraid to report it. Newspaper editor Stephen Kaye, whom Ashbrook had visited days before the shooting, described him as being "the opposite of someone you'd be concerned about", saying he "couldn't have been any nicer." However, his neighbors had an entirely different view of him, describing him as strange and violent. Investigators at his house discovered that he had virtually destroyed the interior of his house - holes were bashed into the walls with crowbars, the toilets were filled with concrete, and the fruit trees growing in the front yard had been poisoned. Police investigating the shooting could find no solid motive for the crime. In the months before the shooting, people who knew Ashbrook said he became increasingly paranoid, certain that he was being framed for

serial murder A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

and other crimes that he did not commit. He also feared that the

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

was targeting him, and he reported

psychological warfare Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), have been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations (MISO), Psy Ops, political warfare, "Hearts and Mi ...

, assaults by co-workers and being drugged by the police. Just days before the shooting he voiced these concerns to a newspaper, saying "I want someone to tell my story, no one will listen to me; no one will believe me." According to Houston-area writer John Craig, Ashbrook had ties to the

Phineas Priesthood The Phineas Priesthood, also called Phineas Priests, are American domestic terrorists who adhere to the ideology which was set forth in the 1990 book ''Vigilantes of Christendom: The Story of the Phineas Priesthood'' by Richard Kelly Hoskins. The ...

and

Christian Identity Christian Identity (also known as Identity Christianity) is an interpretation of Christianity which advocates the belief that only Celtic and Germanic peoples, such as the Anglo-Saxon, Nordic nations, or Aryan people and people of kindred blood ...

, both of which view mainstream

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...

as an enemy.

Media

And A Time To Heal: Wedgwood Baptist Church, 2010

References

External links

Wedgwood Baptist Church Shooting - Immediate Aftermath (1999)Wedgwood Baptist Church Shooting - Community Response (1999)Wedgwood Baptist TragedyWedgwood Baptist Church Shooting
''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' (September 18, 1999)
Death in a Church: The Overview
''

'' (September 18, 1999)
Death in a Church: The Politics
''

'' (September 18, 1999)
Death in a Church: The Killer
''

'' (September 18, 1999)
Death in a Church: The Overview
''

'' (September 17, 1999)
Death in a Church: The Victims
''

'' (September 17, 1999)
Church gunman kills 7, self, in Texas
''

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

'' (September 16, 1999) {{DEFAULTSORT:Wedgewood Baptist Church shooting 1999 mass shootings in the United States 1999 murders in the United States Anti-Christian sentiment in the United States Attacks in the United States in 1999 Christian Identity 1990s crimes in Texas Deaths by firearm in Texas Improvised explosive device bombings in the United States Mass murder in 1999 Mass shootings in the United States Massacres of Christians Murder in Texas Murder–suicides in Texas Suicides by firearm in Texas