{"id":20799,"date":"2024-02-12T15:45:21","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T20:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=20799"},"modified":"2024-02-12T15:45:21","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T20:45:21","slug":"women-opens-fire-inside-joel-osteens-texas-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/02\/women-opens-fire-inside-joel-osteens-texas-church","title":{"rendered":"Women Opens Fire Inside Joel Osteen’s Texas Church"},"content":{"rendered":"
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University of College \/ Shutterstock.com | Inset: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Two people are injured and one suspect was killed during a shooting at Lakewood Church in Texas on Sunday afternoon. According to officials, a woman walked into Joel Osteen’s popular Texas megachurch on Sunday afternoon with a young child in tow and opened fire before law enforcement shot and killed her. The gunfire left the child in critical condition and another man injured. Officers \u201cshot and killed her in self-defense\u201d after she pointed her weapon at them, according to the search warrant released Monday by the Montgomery County District Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Police have not shared details about a possible motive of the shooting, but have identified her as Genesse Ivonne Moreno. Police also reported that Moreno mentioned she had a bomb with her during the shooting. “Once she went down, officers reported back to us that she threatened that she had a bomb,” police chief Troy Finner explained. “So we searched her vehicle, our bomb squad, and also the backpack [she brought]. No explosives were found, but she was also spraying some type of substance on the ground.”<\/p>\n

Senior pastor Joel Osteen spoke about how “devastated” he is by the tragedy during a press conference. “We don’t understand why all these things happened, but we know God’s in control,” Osteen said. We’re going to continue to to move forward. There are forces of evil, but the forces that are for us, the forces of God, are stronger than that,” he continued. “So we’re going to keep going strong and just, you know, doing what God’s called us to do, lift people up and give hope to the world again.” In a press release, Governor Greg Abbott called the shooting “tragic.” “Our hearts are with\u00a0those impacted by today\u2019s tragic shooting and the entire Lakewood Church\u00a0community in Houston,” Abbott said. “Places of worship are sacred.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two people are injured and one suspect was killed during a shooting at Lakewood Church in Texas on Sunday afternoon. According to officials, a woman walked into Joel Osteen’s popular Texas megachurch on Sunday afternoon with a young child in tow and opened fire before law enforcement shot and killed her. The gunfire left the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":664,"featured_media":20826,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWomen Opens Fire Inside Joel Osteen's Texas Church<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Two people are injured and one suspect was killed during a shooting at Lakewood Church in Texas on Sunday afternoon.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2024\/02\/women-opens-fire-inside-joel-osteens-texas-church\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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