Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Pastor Murdered Last Night During Church Service in Cali

We're working on contacting the church and seeing what we can do to support them at this difficult time. For now, all we know is from this article from Cali's El País newspaper:

A pastor was killed last night in the church sanctuary as he was saying goodbye to his parishioners that had attended the service at the International Charismatic Mission Church in the San Bosco neighborhood in downtown Cali.

Around 8:30 p.m. 45-year-old Francisco Valencia, 10 year co-pastor of the evangelical church that meets in the old Alameda Theater, had just finished the service when a short man approached and shot him repeatedly without saying a word.

Church members ran out of the building allowing the shooter to escape. Police later detained the alleged attacker.

"He is a 16-year-old minor. We found a .38 caliber revolver on him," said Colonel Jairo Gutiérrez of the [Cali] Metropolitan Police.

The pastor was taken to the Valle University Hospital where he passed away.