BREAKING NEWS: Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch on Sunday, police killed a woman who opened fire, and a child was seriously hurt

Off-duty police shot and killed a woman who said she had a bomb and opened fire with a rifle at Joel Osteen’s Houston megachurch on Sunday. The gunfire hit a 5-year-old child, leaving him in critical condition.

According to Houston Police Chief Troy Finner, the woman in the trench coat and the child walked into Osteen’s Lakewood church between services just before 2 p.m. CT and started firing a long gun for no reason.

“Once she entered, at some point she began to fire,” he said. He also said that police at the scene said the woman, who was about 30 to 35 years old, said she had an explosive device.

An officer from the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission and an officer from the Houston Police Department both shot and hit the woman, Finner said. “The 5-year-old was hit, which is sad.” “A 57-year-old man was shot in the leg who I don’t think had anything to do with it,” the chief said.

Osteen, who is one of the most famous pastors in the country and leads services with tens of thousands of people, said that the shooting had left him “in a fog.” The Hartford Institute for Religion Research says that 45,000 people frequently attend services at the church every week, making it the third biggest megachurch in the United States. Osteen’s TV talks are seen in more than 100 countries.

“We’ve been here 65 years and to have somebody shooting in your church?” He said this at a news conference with cops. We have no idea what caused this to happen. We are going to pray for that 5-year-old boy, the woman who died, her family, and the other man.

“The church is going to stay strong,” he said. We’re going to keep going forward. Evil has its forces, but the forces that work for us, the forces of God, are greater.

Osteen said he’s glad more people weren’t hurt. “If there’s anything good of it, she didn’t get in there and do a whole lot worse damage,” he told me.

Alan Guity, 35, has been a member of the church for five years. He said he heard gunshots while he was resting in the chapel before a Spanish service at 2 p.m. while his mother worked as an usher.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom, and I yelled, ‘Mom,'” he explained. As the shots kept coming, he ran to his mother and they both laid down on the floor and prayed. For about five minutes, they stayed there until someone told them it was safe to leave. He said that outside, he and his mother worshiped and sang in Spanish, “Move in me, move in me,” to try to calm people down. Feel my mind and heart. Holy Spirit, move inside me.

Finner said that police later checked the woman’s backpack and white car and found no signs of explosives. The woman was also putting something on the floor around her before the attack, according to the police.

Finner said he didn’t know if the woman or the police officers hurt the child, who was in serious condition in the hospital.

He said that both the agent and the cop were put on administrative leave. He wouldn’t say anything about why the woman went into the church.

He said, “We don’t know what she wants, and we may never know.”

Huge church building
Houston police tweeted on Sunday afternoon that they were reacting to a shooting at the church, which is a 16,000-seat, 606,000-square-foot building that used to be a sports arena and is now used for services by tens of thousands of people. “This scene is still going on.” “Please stay away from the area,” the department wrote.

Houston is the county seat of Harris County, and Ed Gonzalez, the sheriff for that county, also wrote about the story on X. At 3:10 p.m., Gonzalez wrote that he had heard shots had been fired at or near the Lakewood Church. Gonzalez said that officers from the department were working there.

There are stories that between 40,000 and 50,000 people attend Lakewood Church’s services every week.

There are no religious beliefs at this non-denominational church. The next service was supposed to air at 7 p.m. CT, but it was canceled, the church said on its Facebook page.

He became preacher when his father died in 1999. After people on social media criticized the church for not opening its doors sooner, he did so in 2017 as a place to stay during Hurricane Harvey.

In 2021, a plumber working at the church found hundreds of bags with checks and cash hidden in a wall behind a toilet. This made the news again. Later, the Associated Press said the stash might have something to do with the 2014 theft of $600,000 in checks and cash from the church.

As part of a protest against abortion in 2022, three people took off all but their underwear during a church meeting.