An off-duty police officer tipped off authorities Sunday, when he spotted a man who may have been on his way to commit a church massacre in Seguin, Texas.
The witness said he first saw the man, who was carrying a firearm and ammunition and “wearing tactical style clothing, a surgical face shield,” around 7 a.m., Sequin Police spokeswoman Tanya Brown said in a press release.
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According to The Seguin Gazette, police soon made contact with a man identified as 33-year-old Tony Albert, who allegedly told law enforcement officers he was on his way to an unidentified church to “fulfill … a prophecy.”
Albert was arrested and held at Guadalupe County Jail on charges of possession of marijuana and unlawful possession of a firearm, a felony.
The potential attacker was only a few hundred feet away from The Door Christian Fellowship. He was arrested about 10 minutes before the worship service was supposed to begin.
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“I felt really bad for the guy,” pastor Jason Garcia told KTRK-TV. “Every one of us has sin in our life; every one of us has struggles. And it just takes one bad day to push somebody over the edge, and whatever that guy was going through, I feel bad for him. I hope he gets the help that he needs.”
As for the police, Brown said officers are “extremely grateful to the citizen who called police,” because “if this subject was not stopped and apprehended, the results could have ended differently.”