GLENN: The shooter intended for a high body count. This was yesterday morning. Man walked into a church outside of Nashville.
He shot six people. He killed a woman in the church. He's 25-year-old Emanuel Kidega Samson. He's an immigrant from Sudan who came to the US in 1996. Police say he was a legal resident of the US.
But Sunday morning, Samson drove into the parking lot of the Burnette Chapel Church of Christ. He left his car running. He got out wearing a ski mask. And he was armed with two handguns. He shot and killed 39-year-old Melanie Smith in the parking lot. Then he went into the church through the rear door. Inside the church, he opened fire. He didn't say a word.
There was a -- there was an usher there. His name was Robert Engle. He tried to subdue Samson, but Samson took his gun and pistol whipped him. In the struggle, Samson apparently wounded himself with a gunshot to his leg. Engle's father then guarded Samson, while Engle ran out to his car to get his gun. He had one. But he wasn't carrying it in church.
Engle returned. Put his gun on Samson and kept his foot on him until the police arrived. Six wounded churchgoers, hospitalized today, stable condition. Engle is also in the hospital, being treated for a head wound and a separated shoulder. Samson was treated and released from the hospital. Been charged with murder, with additional charges to follow.
Church members were surprised because Samson attended the church several times just a few years ago. Police don't have a motive yet, including whether race was a factor.
Without all the facts, people are already choosing sides. Definitely terrorism. Definitely. He's from Sudan. He's black. So it's definitely racially motivated.
Children of immigrants hate America, you know. We don't have any of the facts. We don't know.
Here's why I think this needs to be talked about today. We have to stop jumping on red meat bandwagons: Immigration, terrorism, racial hatred. They're all factors. And they may be at play here. We don't know. But it might be the guy was just, you know, soup-to-nuts crazy.
We'll find out the truth. Life is actually really simple. It's humans that are complicated. But one thing you need to know is evil is real. But bandwagons don't solve the evil problem. They don't solve the root of the problem of moral decay. They're not going to solve, you know, racial injustice or immigration or they're certainly not going to comfort this grieving church.
What will: All the things people roll their eyes at. The most powerful things known to humankind. It's what makes men, men. And yet, we dismiss it. Love. Empathy. Courage. Compassion. Service. Prayer.
What we all roll our eyes at, in the end, will be the only thing that saves us from ourselves.