Congregants at a Louisiana church banded together to prevent a mass shooting over the weekend,Roland Preston and it was all caught on a livestream.
The chaos erupted Saturday at Saint Mary Magdalene Church in Abbeville during a first communion ceremony for 60 second graders. According to police, a 16-year-old boy carrying a gun opened the back door of the packed church and was immediately confronted and escorted away by parishioners.
Panic can be seen sweeping over the crowd in the ceremony's livestream. Altar servers ran for cover and clergy ducked behind the altar, all while the priest tried to calm everyone by asking them to recite a prayer.
Officers in tactical gear showed up moments later to make sure the church was safe. Nobody was hurt, and the 16-year-old was arrested and taken for a mental health evaluation.
The Louisiana incident came a week after a man attempted to shoot a Pennsylvania pastor mid-service. Video of that would-be shooting showed the moment the man's gun jammed as the deacon dove over a pew and tackled him.
"I just tried to get out the way of him shooting me, because he pointed it right at me, and I'm just looking right down the barrel of a gun," pastor Glenn Germany told CBS News.
The Pennsylvania gunman, Bernard Polite, said he heard voices. He was arrested and charged with murdering his cousin earlier that day.
Omar Villafranca is a CBS News correspondent based in Dallas. He joined CBS News in 2014 as a correspondent for Newspath. Before CBS, Villafranca worked at KXAS-TV Dallas-Fort Worth, at KOTV-TV the CBS affiliate in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and at KSWO-TV in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Twitter2025-05-07 13:452165 view
2025-05-07 12:59250 view
2025-05-07 12:121462 view
2025-05-07 12:072707 view
2025-05-07 11:572362 view
2025-05-07 11:571261 view
Friday the 13th might be unlucky for many people, but Mega Millions players could be lucky in tonigh
The list of things we dread is almost endless: the Sunday scaries, climate change, deadlines, the ho
Robert De Niro's seventh child has made her TV debut.The Oscar winner shared with CBS Mornings' Gayl