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.”

            • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              Just because you have a book written 2000 years ago by a bunch of xenophobic goat herders doesn’t make your imaginary friends any more legitimate than 4 year old Sally who’s parent’s won’t get her a cat.

              • AdamantRatPuncher@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                1 year ago

                See, this generalisation is extremely poor. That is a life system, not a set of imaginary friends. Not that I am religious at all, but you’re wrong on almost anything you think. And yet you like to look at yourself as smarter that those people, which you are not, and neither am I. Again, your logic is exclusionary and doesn’t really work irl. You better talk to different people and interact with different cultures cause you’re isolating yourself.

              • AdamantRatPuncher@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                4
                ·
                1 year ago

                It doesn’t matter. These are just people living their lives. Trying to force a debate in this circumstance is really pointless. Again, what do you want them to say? Something like ‘thank science’? A lot of people grow in a religious setting. You’re not special for that. Beside, you can justify bad behaviours even without a religion, in this case the pointless hate for a couple of churchgoers is quite telling. I am quite sure they aren’t thinking about some Internet guy now, they’ll be probably grateful for what happened in that day. I’m done…

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      The fact police received a report and acted in a timely manner to that report is actually pretty remarkable. Whether it’s divine intervention or statistical inevitability doesn’t really matter.