Houston Police: Shooter at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church Was Woman with a Long Gun

Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen, left center, listens as Mayor John Whitmire comments d
Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images

The Houston Police Department used a Sunday afternoon press conference to announce that the shooter who targeted Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church was female.

Breitbart News reported that the attacker was stopped by a good guy with a gun, whom Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez initially identified as a Harris County deputy. However, Gonzalez later issued a correction, noting that the shooter was stopped when “other agencies fired,” according to ABC News.

The shooting occurred just prior to 2 p.m.

During the Sunday afternoon press conference, Houston PD chief Troy Finner explained that the attacker who opened fire in Lakewood Church was a 30 to 35-year-old female armed with a long rifle. She was wearing a trench coat and carrying a backpack.

The female had a small child with her. Two off-duty officers — a 38-year-old TABC agent and a 28-year-old Houston PD off-duty officer — opened fire, shooting the female.

A five-year-old child was shot and is in critical condition, and a 57-year-old man was shot and wounded as well.

Finner said that once she was shot, the female “threatened” and claimed to have explosives. The female shooter died from her gunshot wounds.

Finner stressed that he believes the attack was “an isolated incident.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a pro-staffer for Pulsar Night Vision. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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