As many as two dozen children fled to Second Church during the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (TVUUC), which is directly adjacent to the Presbyterian church.
News reports said a man entered the Unitarian church at about 10:15 a.m. and began shooting during a production of the musical “Annie.” About 200 people were watching the production, which was being put on by 25 children, the Associated Press reported.
At least three TVUUC church members subdued the shooter and held him until officers arrived, police said in published reports.
At the time adult and youth Sunday school was taking place at Second Church, shortly after the congregation’s regular morning service had concluded, according to Charlotte Klieman, a deacon who was at her church when shots rang out next door.
She said some children from TVUUC fled to Second Church on their own while others were directed there by members of the Presbyterian church who had gone outside to help. No children are believed to have been hit by the gunfire.
Klieman said most of the children from the Unitarian church were taken to an upstairs youth room at Second Church. She said parents started arriving at about 11 a.m. to pick up their children.
“A number of the children would say, ‘Are we safe here? Is it safe now?’” Klieman said. “We didn’t know how many [gunmen] there were. We didn’t know if he had left the building. We got our preschool into lockdown. We were running around closing the doors, trying to get adults to come back into the sanctuary instead of hanging around outside wondering what was going on.”
A suspect, Jim Adkisson, 58, of Powell, Tenn., was charged with one count of first-degree murder, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen told reporters. Bail was set at $1 million late Sunday. Adkisson is not believed to have been a member of the Unitarian church, said Owen, who told CNN on Monday that the shooter was motivated by frustration over being unable to obtain a job and hatred for liberals. The news agency reported that authorities recovered a four-page letter in which Adkisson described his feelings and motives.
Five additional persons were hospitalized in either critical or serious condition, police said. Two other people hurt in the attack were treated and released, Owen said.
A woman from another nearby Presbyterian church brought flowers to the scene, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on its Web site. Carrie Niceley, 19, said an announcement about the shooting was made while she was attending services at First Church.
She selected flowers from arrangements in the First Church sanctuary, placed them in a vase and drove to TVUUC, according to the newspaper. She said the church members should know “they’re in our thoughts and prayers.”
Klieman said the Knoxville community remained in shock on Monday.
“In this case it was in a place of sanctuary,” she said. “The church is so important here. It’s just like a violation.”
William Waterstradt, interim pastor at Second Church, could not immediately be reached for comment on Monday.
Sunday’s attack was the fourth time in 15 months that an American church became a scene of a fatal shooting, and the second time a Presbyterian church was in some way involved.
In May 2007 in Moscow, Ida., 36-year-old Jason Hamilton fatally shot a police officer and a sexton at First Presbyterian Church, then killed himself before police stormed the building. Hamilton’s wife was found shot to death in the bedroom of their Moscow home after the church shootings.
The following August, 52-year-old Eiken Saimon shot and killed three people and wounded five others at a Congregational church in Neosho, Mo.
And in December 2007, a 24-year-old former missionary candidate killed two people at a suburban Denver, Colo., missionary training center and two more at a Colorado Springs megachurch the following day. The gunman, Matthew Murray, killed himself after being shot by a security guard.
Children and adults of Knoxville’s Unitarian Universalist church community will be offered “debriefing sessions” tonight (July 29) at Second Church. A candlelight gathering is planned tonight at 7:30 p.m.
