As they started
their production of Annie, a musical about an
orphan's unwavering hope, the children of the Tennessee
Valley Unitarian Universalist Church witnessed a scene
that may have rattled theirs. From the stage they saw
a gunman pull a sawed-off shotgun out of a guitar case
and fire three deadly blasts that covered their friends and
relatives in blood before congregants wrestled him to
the ground.
Two dead and six
wounded may only begin to tell the toll from the
gunman's rampage on a congregation on Sunday, church leaders
and experts say. Congregation president Ted Jones
worries about the impact on the children as time
progresses.
''You've got kids
that were covered in blood. There were kids that
watched their grandparents in a pool of blood and they were
screaming and running down the hall in blood,'' Jones
said. ''They saw so much.''
The church began
to provide all church members, but particularly the
children, private counseling the day after the attack. ''We
have done a lot of kid work and youth work,'' said
Jones, a pain psychologist by profession.
Dr. Michael
Kirby, a licensed child psychologist in Lakewood, Colo.,
said children deal with trauma differently than adults
do.
''Adults have
larger coping skills. But with kids, they may or may not be
good about talking about it. For younger kids, it won't be
talking about what happened but drawing, using
pictures,'' he said.
Teens, he said,
might feel vulnerable and could write letters to the
church or send sympathy cards to help them sort out their
feelings.
''Kids must
understand this is a lightning bolt and you help them
respond with some kind of control,'' he said.
Sixteen-year-old
Amira Parkey, one of the young performers, recalled
hearing the ''loud boom'' of the first gunshot from the back
of the sanctuary.
''I am just
standing on stage looking at people's faces like what is
going on?'' she told AP Television News. ''Then we heard the
next gunshot go off and I see this man standing there
with gray hair and this shotgun.''
A mother's friend
pulled her off the stage. Everyone was running for
cover. Parkey couldn't break through the crowd to reach her
family. She was bawling. A woman grabbed her, told her
''to be strong, pull yourself together'' and to help
the younger children get out of the church. As they
fled the building, she heard the third and final gunshot.
Outside, she
found her sisters. She grabbed her youngest sister and
hugged her. Then her grandmother and brother came out. They
were covered in blood, but it was from other victims.
''I have never
been so scared,'' she said. ''It was so chaotic. It all
happened so slow, but so fast at the same time.''
The Rev. William
Sinkford, president of the 1,000-congregation Unitarian
Universalist Association in Boston, said the national
organization ''is providing all the support we can
muster to minister to those touched most immediately
by this horrific tragedy.''
The suspected
gunman, Jim D. Adkisson, 58, an out-of-work trucker whose
ex-wife was once a member of the church, is being held on $1
million bond. He has been charged with one count of
murder, and more charges are expected.
In a four-page
letter police found in his small SUV in the church parking
lot, Adkisson said he attacked the church because ''he hated
the liberal movement,'' Police Chief Sterling Owen
said. The church, which advocates social change, has
worked for desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages,
women's rights and gay rights. The congregation also has
provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the
homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil
Liberties Union.
Church officials
say the violence won't change their perspective, or
their policy that everyone is welcome in their congregation.
''We have a
little sign in the front window that says, 'Everyone
Welcome,' and a rainbow flag,'' Jones said. ''And that, or
something like that, is going to stay.'' (Duncan
Mansfield, AP)
