Authorities have arrested a man who they say was minutes away from carrying out a mass shooting at a church in Northern Virginia on Sunday morning.

Investigators said they were able to stop the potential massacre at Park Valley Church in Haymarket thanks to someone who saw troubling posts on Instagram and called police

Authorities arrested a man who they say was minutes away from carrying out a mass shooting at a church in Northern Virginia on Sunday morning.

Rui Jiang, 35, was taken into custody with a loaded gun and extra ammo at Park Valley Church in Haymarket. Authorities said he was on a mission to kill.

“This was a thwarted diabolical plot to kill churchgoers in Haymarket, Virginia … and local law enforcement stopped it,” Chief Kevin Davis of the Fairfax County Police Department said.

“Minutes. Minutes. The congregation was making their way into the church. He was in the vestibule of the church about to enter,” Davis said. “So, minutes or seconds away.”

  • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
    8·
    1 year ago

    Another mass shooting narrowly averted and the only comments here are how stupid religious people are because they happened to thank their God.

    Maybe take a moment to reflect on if this level of tribalism and callousness represents the sort of person you want to be.

      • ClumZy@sh.itjust.works
        4·
        1 year ago

        Don’t assume the poster’s position on that issue… I believe in God and I believe in the right to abortion too, everything is not black or white.

      • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        I fully support a woman’s right to choose without conditions because I believe it’s wrong to require that someone keep someone else alive with their own body. It removes that person’s agency and reduces them to less than a person. We can’t require that people donate organs after they die, so we obviously can’t require that they host another person against their will.

        A person should have more rights and protections than a corpse. Obviously.

    • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
      2·
      1 year ago

      Lemmy stinks like shit lately. I never subbed to r/atheism for this reason. Then we got Hexbear pretending that pictures of pigs pooping on their balls is activism. This is like every other reddit alternative: after a few months, only the most unsavory people stick around. It’s miserable here.

      • Cylusthevirus@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean … what did they think the result of those low effort posts would be, exactly? I’ve been on the Internet long enough to see far, FAR worse than that. All it does is clutter up a thread.

        OTOH, threads like these are great for my blocklist. Makes it easy to screen out histrionic bigots that can’t differentiate between an Episcopalian or United Methodist with a gay priest who’s worst crime against humanity involves providing housing for folks in their community and some batshit nuts Evangelical White Nationalist.