Saturday prayer service for victims of gun violence planned in McMinnville

A “Community Prayer Service for the Victims of Gun Violence” is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Saturday in the McMinnville First Baptist Church, 125 S. Cowls Street in McMinnville.

 “This is a time for shared prayer and to look for signs of God’s loving light even in the midst of this darkness,” said Pastor Kent Harrop, who will host the service along with the First Baptist staff.

The service responds to the Friday morning deaths of 28 people in Newtown, Connecticut, including 20 young children, and the Tuesday shooting that killed three people and injured another at Clackamas Town Center Mall outside in Oregon. The shooters in both incidents took their own lives.

Reports have identified the shooter in Connecticut as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who took his own life after killing 20 children and 6 members of the school staff, including the principal. Authorities believe that before his assault on the school, Lanza murdered his mother at her home. She was a kindergarten teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where the mass shooting occurred.

This year in the United States, 13 mass shooting incidents have killed 90 people. The Friday tragedy in Connecticut was among the worst-ever mass killings in U.S. history.