Church shooting, Granada Hills

[Bombard]

Police: Man with rifle wounds 3 outside LA church

35 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A man with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at a festival outside a Southern California church Saturday, wounding three people, one of them critically, police said.

Shots rang out shortly before 11 a.m. outside St. John Baptist de la Salle, a Roman Catholic church in Granada Hills, Officer Norma Eisenman said. Bystanders tackled the man and held him until he was taken into police custody, she said.

"He was tackled by an off-duty Burbank police officer" and taken into custody by Los Angeles police, she said.

The gunman wounded three people, including a female who was shot in the elbow, Eisenman said. Two people were taken to a hospital in stable condition and one was in critical condition, she said.

Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said another person was treated for chest pains.

The motive for the attack was not immediately known, Eisenman said.

Church officials did not immediately return calls for comment.

[Glock32]

Not good. The antis will milk it as usual.

[RomanDad]

Nothing like shooting up a church carnival...

On the brightside, it sounds like he was particularly BAD at it.... And he'll have the rest of his life to sit in a cell.

[RomanDad]

Custody Disptue- TRO didnt work.

Police say the motive for the attack appears to be a custody dispute.

One of the victims was the rifleman's 29-year-old live-in girlfriend. She was shot in the elbow and listed in stable condition. The woman's son, 9, attended the festival and was unharmed. It was unclear whether the rifleman was the boy's father, Eisenman said.

The two other victims were a 45-year-old man who was shot in the leg and a 43-year-old man who was shot in the chest. Both are in stable condition.

Eisenman said the gunman used a semiautomatic rifle.

After the initial shots, the assailant was subdued by bystanders, one of whom was an off-duty police officer, Eisenman said.

Witnesses told KABC-TV Channel 7 that the rifleman roamed around the festival before pulling the weapon out of a tennis bag. He then seemed to randomly open fire, witnesses said.

"We have a parent who apparently has a restraining order, and he came in, kissed his son and pulled an assault rifle out and shot three people," parent Martinique Williams told Channel 7.

[Bombard]

Looks like the critical patient has been upgraded. This one could have been a LOT worse.

[Ciderbite]

it may be a opportunity for the pro-self defense crowd to put in front of those, who would like to disarm all citizens the right of selfdefense, the common thread of all these public shootings .................. good guys have no guns (obeying the law) and bad guys (breaking the law) have them. For the life of me, I just doen't get how this is the first thing that is always overlooked.

[Bombard]

The news showed an AR type rifle. They called it a 22 caliber, the people that tackled him said they did it while he was reloading.

As with all things shown on the TV news, don't take it as gospel.