A Spartanburg woman faces charges after police say she pointed a shotgun at four people at a Sunday worship service.
It happened at New Faith International Church on Boundary Drive in Spartanburg.
Police say 29-year old Cynthia Denise Watson was upset at a church member over a relationship with a man. Witnesses say she stormed out of the sanctuary during Sunday service and returned with a shotgun. Church member Eric Hines, a parking attendent, says he saw Watson acting "erratic" in the parking lot, then saw her take a shotgun out of her car and walk toward the building.
"I didn't want no one in our congregation or my pastor to get hurt," says Hines, who says a recent church shooting in Nashville was playing through his mind as he saw the woman carrying the gun.
Hines says he intercepted Watson in the back hallway of the church while calling police on his cell phone.
"I said baby, you don't have to do this," says Hines. Two other church members had arrived to deal with the situation.
An incident report states that Watson said, "If they want to get stupid, I can get stupid. I got something for them." It says she racked a shell into the shotgun and pointed it at Hines and the other two people. Hines says he managed to talk her into leaving, but after she left the building she had not calmed down.
Larry Jones, another church member who was in the parking lot, says after Watson left the building she got into her car and pointed the shotgun at him while yelling obscenities.
"Couldn't nobody understand her, she was just screaming and yelling," says Jones.
He says she left before police arrived. Officers arrested her later that day, charging her with four counts of pointing and presenting a firearm.
New Faith International Pastor Roosevelt Copeland, who was preaching a sermon during the entire ordeal, says it is an unfortunate incident but he does not want it to reflect negatively on his church.
"We started out with four members in a basement and now have 400 members because we preach against this kind of violence and reach out to people in some of the more impovershed areas of the community," says Copeland. "When you have that many members, sometimes outside problems follow people into church."
He says Watson is not a member of the church but has relatives who are members.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement