‘Thwarted diabolical plot': Man arrested minutes before mass shooting at Northern Virginia church, police say
‘Thwarted diabolical plot': Man arrested minutes before mass shooting at Northern Virginia church, police say
Authorities have arrested a man who they say was minutes away from carrying out a mass shooting at a church in Northern Virginia on Sunday morning.
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.”
“Quite frankly, we've just been thanking God. You know, God’s been so good to us, and he protected us,
Never fails to amaze me how someone can completely disregard the hard work and sacrifice of other human beings and instead praise an imaginary skyguy.
Same imaginary skygod who put them in harms way to begin with. Never did understand.
No, no: that's the other skyguy. We're like the kids in a bitter divorce, constantly bounced between a good parent and a bad parent, with no actual agency. Except to thank good skyguy, otherwise they might not protect us from bad skyguy next time.
Skyguy whims sometimes feel arbitrary and capricious, but there's divine or diabolical intent, which means it's way better than being lost to the randomness of chaotic but determinate natural forces. How terrifying would the world be if stuff just happened for no reason?
Since I feel the sudden urge to vent, I've never forgotten staying at this one homeless shelter several years ago.
We found out much later after the place was shut down that they'd actually been receiving more than adequate donations the entire time, but the staff was just taking it all home with them and telling us that there was no food to give. They could do one or sometimes two meals, but never much, never more, and not dependably from day to. They had none.
So obviously we believed them and since this was just...the position we were in, I was taking the money I was technically required by agreement to save for a place and using it to buy food for myself and anywhere from 1 to 4 of the other residents.
One of them was Gabriel, who came in with the clothes on his back and a guitar. Gabriel was religious, but one of the painfully few who put the kindness part first and he was very sweet and tended to be walked on for it and to become depressed for being taken advantage of.
When he took his guitar around looking for gigs, I went with him for moral support. When one of those was a church, I sat in with the flock even though the related trauma makes my skin crawl. When winter drew close, I bought him what I still think was a pretty snazzy jacket.
I split a meal almost daily for months, because I'm not going to see anyone hungry when I can afford it, even though none of us could really afford it and doing so was imperiling my future. When he found out the fiance he doted on was banging his best friend while he himself was homeless, guess who was there to cry on immediately.
I don't regret any of those, to be very clear. I'd grudgingly do it again, because people matter more. But to think to check up on him some years after we parted and find him thanking god for looking after him during that time was a direct slap in the face. Over a decade later, it still stings.
Of course it would be god. Looking after each other like sentient, suffering beings, that's god's doing, personally stepping in to work his mysterious ways. I only take the blame for the bad shit.
As a total stranger, thankyou for looking after Gabriel, even after being so mistreated yourself. You clearly have a lot of compassion and kindness to offer the world, even if it's not always respected by its recipients (although it sounds like Gabriel may not have had the skills or ability to fully comprehend it). I hope you're in a much better place and able to extend your kindness even further and without neglecting your own needs in the process.
Wow. I can see how that would've stung. It just feels so irrational! And, there's no need for them to drop their god schtick when acknowledging someone's effort. He could've just as easily have said "I thank god for putting people who cared around me"
Man, I know a woman who got COVID bad and got a double lung transplant. Not a word about any of her doctors or other care staff that kept her alive while on a ventilator for 6 month. Not even a mention once. But it was constant "look at the power of prayer" and "thank the good lord for my recovery" and shit like that.
Which is hilarious considering how many "good Christians" died for refusing the vaccine. Confirmation bias in action!
Even when I was a theist I still made a point of thanking doctors and nurses. Everyone can get credit.
It's a mistake to dismiss religious people as stupid, but they really make it hard not to sometimes.
Because they're not stupid; or at least, that's not why they're religious. Sadly, religious indoctrination can affect even brilliant minds.
Why is it a mistake?
I mean, it is a church. I think it's stupid, but it's not like it's a car dealership. What do you think they're going to say?
In his actual statement he thanked the police and everyone involved. NBC Washington felt that only the snippet thanking God was worth reporting.
Thanks for clarifying
A bunch of people were almost murdered and THIS is what drives you to engage. Yikes.
Snips knew better than to praise Skyguy… eventually
Police don't have a particularly good track record at prevention; they are rather famous for showing up after the crime has happened. I think giving crediting a higher power for the miracle that they proactively stopped a shooter before the shooting started kinda fits.
I also think it's reasonable that folks who believe in a deity that theoretically protects them would thank that deity when they feel protected. I somehow doubt the cops on scene lacked for any expression of thanks because everyone was too busy praying.
They did thank everyone involved, the news didn't report on it. Hope you feel stupid for saying that.
Permanently Deleted
Clearly, Fairfax County Police are doing something the other counties/states should be taking notes on.
Arresting someone before they've had the chance to kill people is AGAINST the Second Amendment! The ONLY time you're allowed to intervene is AFTER they've killed an adult in public or child in school!
Honest what is that? Attempted murder. Do they give the Nobel Prize for Attempted Chemistry?
How does one find random posts on Instagram near them? I only see the people i follow and some ad type posts. Was she following this guy?
A true miracle
Nice, they can thwart a shooting at a church but not at a school.
What is the point of your comment?
Prince William County (where the church was) and Fairfax County (where the guy lived) police haven't really had to deal with a school shooting incident, but have intervened when students were reportedly bringing guns to schools.
If anything, earlier this year, Fairfax County Police sent officers to monitor a school when a threat was found in the bathroom of a school and earlier this month, Prince William County Police were monitoring a school after a threat was called in.
Another mass shooting narrowly averted and the only comments here are how stupid religious people are because they happened to thank their God.
Maybe take a moment to reflect on if this level of tribalism and callousness represents the sort of person you want to be.
Nah religion is harmful i'ma shame them
I have and it does. Now restore Roe v Wade
I fully support a woman's right to choose without conditions because I believe it's wrong to require that someone keep someone else alive with their own body. It removes that person's agency and reduces them to less than a person. We can't require that people donate organs after they die, so we obviously can't require that they host another person against their will.
A person should have more rights and protections than a corpse. Obviously.
Thank you. I'll get hammered with downvotes but not everyone who believes in God is a moron, or a Republican, or a Trump supporter, or anti-science, or homophobic, or judgmental or any other shit like that. Some of us are pretty normal.
You're right. Believing in the literal existence of any god or supernatural entity obviously doesn't imply that the believer is a moron in a general intellectual sense. There are plenty of highly skilled and academically-inclined religious people, including scientists. However, such beliefs do reflect an inability or stubborn unwillingness to align with a scientific worldview, which in turn suggests some form of psychological weakness. I mean, honestly, what would you think of someone who believes in the literal existence of fairies, ghosts, and invisible dragons and organized their world view around those beliefs? You may not actively dislike or discriminate against such people, but you would wonder at their psychological constitution and susceptibility to delusion. And surely you would be worried if they became a majority and started voting for politicians whose goal is to align your society with their invisible magic dragon worship. It's just so...utterly ridiculous. That's why atheists use the shorthand moniker "moron" when referring to religious people. We don't mean that religious people are literally intellectually incapable, just that they hold an inexplicably stupid and inconsistent worldview. The negativity component doesn't apply to the fairy-believers and dragon-worshippers because they are an unthreatening fringe. Christians and Muslims, however, are large, dangerous, and politically influential groups who have shown a tendency towards forcing their views on others. And a majority of Christians, especially the most vocal ones, do vote for Trump. I don't hate all individual Christians or Muslims, who can be perfectly nice people, but I really do hate public and especially political religious expression.
I never once ever called a person a moron for believing in skydaddy. I know it simply isn't true because I have worked with plenty of wicked smart skydaddy followers. Also I was one and didn't get any smarter when I left religion.
The rest of the stuff yeah sure you are all basically the same. Don't really care that some of you pretend to be otherwise on the internet. I have seen how you vote and that is all the data I need. Sorry your Pope is having legal issues now.
no that pretty much sums up every openly religious person I know
Lemmy stinks like shit lately. I never subbed to r/atheism for this reason. Then we got Hexbear pretending that pictures of pigs pooping on their balls is activism. This is like every other reddit alternative: after a few months, only the most unsavory people stick around. It's miserable here.
I mean ... what did they think the result of those low effort posts would be, exactly? I've been on the Internet long enough to see far, FAR worse than that. All it does is clutter up a thread.
OTOH, threads like these are great for my blocklist. Makes it easy to screen out histrionic bigots that can't differentiate between an Episcopalian or United Methodist with a gay priest who's worst crime against humanity involves providing housing for folks in their community and some batshit nuts Evangelical White Nationalist.
It's like a time machine back to 2014 with all these comments and overused insults.
