Police will be patrolling area churches today after a threat by a potentially suicidal man who said he would go out in a “blaze of glory” by shooting up several churches.
The man who identified himself as “Sid” told another man he met in a Lakewood bar near Federal Boulevard and Evans Avenue about his intentions on Monday, said Jim Walters, senior pastor of Bear Valley Church in Lakewood.
Sid apparently took the other man to his white Ford Crown Victoria in the bar’s parking lot and showed him several rifles in his trunk that he would use in the attacks. He said the attacks would happen today, Walters said.
The man specifically threatened to shoot at Bear Valley Church, 10001 West Jewell Ave., and another church with “Grace” in its name, he said.
The man who talked to Sid called Walters’ church Tuesday and told a pastor there about the encounter, he said. The phone call was brief and didn’t include many details.
Church authorities immediately contacted Lakewood police. Police then called neighboring law enforcement agencies and warned churches with Grace in their names, Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis said Saturday.
Because of the potential for violence, Lakewood will have plainclothed and uniformed officers at Bear Valley Church and other churches, including Grace Chapel, as a precaution, Davis said.
“Right now it’s kind of like a bomb threat,” he said. “It’s not a real credible threat, but we’re going to treat it as though it is.”
Walters said there is nobody on the church’s member or visitor lists named Sid. Also there has been no one recently who has been openly disgruntled with the church, he said.
“But we wanted to take every precaution we could,” Walters said.
Dave Palmer, Grace Chapel’s executive pastor, said that after the fatal shootings at Youth With a Mission in Arvada and New Life Church in Colorado Springs in December they could not afford to ignore any potential threat of violence.
Matthew Murray, 24, killed four people and wounded five others in a series of shootings at the Colorado Springs church and missionary training center in Arvada.
“At this point we can’t treat those threats as a hoax,” Palmer said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
