COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (AFP) — The death toll from two shootings at Christian centers in Colorado rose to five, including two teenaged sisters, authorities said, as police Monday investigated what they suspect were related attacks.
"It was simply a random attack, a senseless, random attack," Pastor Brady Boyd told reporters, a day after a shooter opened fire with a rifle as thousands of people arrived at his church for Sunday worship, wounding six others.
The attacker was killed by a security guard near the church in Colorado Springs and one of the wounded died late on Sunday, local Penrose Community Hospital spokeswoman Amy Sufak told AFP.
This brought to five the number of deaths from a pair of shootings. Early Sunday, a young gunman opened fire at a Christian missionary center in the Denver suburb of Arvada, killing two staff members in their mid-20s and wounding two others.
Police identified the victims at the church as two sisters but did not name the killer, local newspapers reported. The Denver Post said police searched a home in a nearby county overnight as part of their investigations.
Boyd said security at the New Life church was boosted after news of the Arvada shooting. The gunman in Arvada had fled before authorities reached the scene.
Police said the shootings were likely linked. "Yes, there's a reason to believe that," Arvada Police Chief Don Wick told reporters Sunday, without elaborating.
Boyd said security was boosted at his church in the light of the Arvada shootings, as thousands of people showed up for Sunday's services.
"Although we are grieving today for the loss of two lives, hundreds of lives were saved yesterday because of the plans that were set in place," he said. A female volunteer member of the security team was on guard and shot the attacker dead, he said.
The two shootings took place 120 kilometers (75 miles) apart -- a one-and-a-half hour drive.
Congregants "came to church to worship, what happened today was a tragedy," said Boyd, who saw the shooting from his office, speaking on Sunday. "It's unfortunate that we live in a society where this happens, but it does."
The New Life Church made headlines in 2006 when its founder, Ted Haggard, resigned as a pastor after admitting to what he called "sexual immorality" in a scandal involving a male prostitute.
Haggard was a vocal supporter of President George W. Bush in 2004 and helped turn Colorado Springs into a major evangelical center.
However, Haggard's successor Boyd made it clear he was not interested in getting involved in national politics.
The Colorado shootings came just days after a teenager armed with a semi-automatic rifle opened fire on Christmas shoppers at a shopping mall in Omaha, Nebraska on Wednesday, killing at least eight people before turning the gun on himself.
This year also saw the worst ever school shooting in the United States, when a deranged student killed 32 classmates and staff at Virginia Tech university. That rampage had already revived debate about gun crime in the United States, which authorities say is home to more than 200 million privately owned firearms for a population of just over 300 million.
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