The gunman said he had targeted us to kill liberals, and he had brought 76 shells of #4 shot, ammunition for a bloodbath. My wife, in an office at the time, was the first to call 911. A visitor, Linda Kraeger, there for the play also died, and six were wounded. Greg bled out on the floor of the church he loved. Several in my congregation, including John Bohstedt (dressed as Daddy Warbucks for the play) and another friend Jamie Parkey, tackled the gunman. I had reflexively dived under a pew by the time of the second blast. Greg’s burly body took some of the blast, saving many lives - likely including my own. My friend and an usher that day, Greg McKendry, tried to stop that gunman. A gunman came into our sanctuary early in the play, took out a modified shotgun hidden in a guitar case and blasted away.

My church, Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist, was having a special service on Jit was a children’s play, a condensed version of Annie. You see, I am a survivor of a hate crime involving blasts of gunfire.

Let me add this perspective from only a modest distance away, my adopted home of Knoxville is less than a 3-hour drive east of Nashville. Nashville-based writers already have written movingly about the tragic gun crime at Covenant School, yet another school shooting - this one took the lives of three children and three adults.

Tennessee church shooting usher