‘Hero' at Alabama Church Potluck Subdued Shooter; Death Toll Rises

The third victim of a church shooting in Alabama has died, police said Friday.

The 84-year-old woman died at a hospital a day after a gunman opened fire with a handgun Thursday at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, the police department said in a Facebook post. They did not release her identity.

The suspect, a 71-year-old man, also fatally shot two other elderly people during a potluck dinner at the church where he occasionally attended services, police said Friday at a news conference. Walter Rainey, 84, of nearby Irondale was killed at the church and Sarah Yeager, 75, of Pelham died after being taken to a hospital, police said.

The suspect was subdued and held by an attendee of the event until police arrived, sparing the congregation from further violence at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in the Birmingham suburb of Vestavia Hills, police Capt. Shane Ware said.

“It was extremely critical in saving lives,” Ware told a news conference. “The person that subdued the suspect, in my opinion, was a hero.”

Ware did not give a motive for the shootings. He also didn't identify the suspect, whom police took into custody at the church. He said the man's name was being withheld until prosecutors formally charge the man with capital murder.

He said the suspect and the three victims were all white.

The event was a “Boomers Potluck” gathering inside the church, according to messages posted on the church’s Facebook page by pastor the Rev. John Burruss. He said he was in Greece on a pilgrimage with a group of members and trying to get back to Alabama.

Police are still trying to determine the shooter's motive, Ware said. He said the suspect had previously attended services at the church.

Vestavia Hills Mayor Ashley Curry told reporters his “close-knit, resilient, loving community” had been rocked by “this senseless act of violence.” The bedroom community is one of the wealthiest cities in Alabama, home to many businesspeople, doctors and lawyers who work in nearby Birmingham. Vestavia Hills is known for top-flight schools and a family-centered, suburban lifestyle. It has nearly 40,000 residents, most of whom are white.

The Rev. Rebecca Bridges, the church’s associate rector, led an online prayer service on the church's Facebook page Friday morning. She prayed not only for the victims and church members who witnessed the shooting, but also “for the person who perpetrated the shooting.”

“We pray that you will work in that person’s heart,” Bridges said. “And we pray that you will help us to forgive.”

Bridges, who is currently in London, alluded to other recent mass shootings as she prayed that elected officials in Washington and Alabama “will see what has happened at St. Stephens and Uvalde and Buffalo and in so many other places and their hearts will be changed, minds will be opened."

"And that our culture will change and that our laws will change in ways that will protect all of us,” she added.

There have been several high-profile shootings in May and June, starting with a racist attack on May 14 that killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. The following week, a gunman massacred 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

Thursday’s shooting took place just over a month after one person was killed and five injured when a man opened fire on Taiwanese parishioners at a church in Southern California. It also comes nearly seven years to the day after an avowed white supremacist killed nine people during Bible study at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Agents with the FBI, U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives joined investigators at the scene, which remained cordoned off Friday with yellow police tape as police vehicles with flashing lights blocked the route to the church.

On Saturday thousands of people rallied in the U.S. and at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., to renew calls for stricter gun control measures. Survivors of mass shootings and other incidents of gun violence lobbied legislators and testified on Capitol Hill earlier this month.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued a statement late Thursday lamenting what she called the shocking and tragic loss of life at the church. Although she said she was glad to hear the suspect was in custody, she wrote: “This should never happen — in a church, in a store, in the city or anywhere."