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Right Before Sermon, Gunmen Kill Two on Church Steps

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A church usher and a visitor were shot dead on the steps of a Chicago church Sunday morning, right as the worship was finishing and the sermon was about to begin.

Emmanuel Fleming, 34, and Michael Swift, 46, were gunned down at 11:15 a.m. outside Friendship Baptist Church on Chicago's troubled west side.

The Chicago Tribune reports that two gunmen wearing bandanas ran toward the broad wooden doors of the church as they took aim at the men. Fleming, an usher at the church, cried out for his three children to take cover inside the sanctuary and miraculously they found safety.

Church members say that when the children, all under 10, burst through the doors they could hear the gunfire just feet away. Everyone dropped to the floor as one of Fleming's children cried out repeatedly "I want my dad."

Police said Fleming and Swift were both taken to nearby hospitals where they were pronounced dead.

Rev. Reginald Bachus was getting ready to get up and deliver his sermon when the gunfire started.

He told the Chicago Tribune, "It's just hard for me to believe that something like this could happen on a Sunday morning."

Chicago's murder rate spiked last year to 762 deaths and is on pace to top 700 again this year, with 323 homicides at the end of June.

The church acknowledged the violence in a statement: "The African-American community is being devastated by easy access to firearms, crushing poverty, limited educational resources, homelessness, unemployment and the revolving door of recidivism."

Friendship Baptist has established a community development corporation to provide a host of services including employment for ex-offenders, job training, resources for homeless women and backpacks and school supplies for neighborhood children.

The church emphasize its commitment to the community saying, "Our goal as a church is to improve our community, recognizing that not every member of the community is a member of the church but the church is a member of the entire community."

Friendship Baptist planned a community anti-violence rally for Monday night.

Chicago police are still searching for the suspects who fled in a gray or silver SUV.

 

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About The Author

Heather
Sells

Heather Sells covers wide-ranging stories for CBN News that include religious liberty, ministry trends, immigration, and education. She’s known for telling personal stories that capture the issues of the day, from the border sheriff who rescues migrants in the desert to the parents struggling with a child that identifies as transgender. In the last year, she has reported on immigration at the Texas border, from Washington, D.C., in advance of the Dobbs abortion case, at crisis pregnancy centers in Massachusetts, and on sexual abuse reform at the annual Southern Baptist meeting in Anaheim