A Pennsylvania man charged with manslaughter in an April 24 shooting inside a Southern Baptist church has been assigned a public defender in advance of a preliminary hearing scheduled May 12.
Reports from local media say that members of the Montgomery County bench appointed an assistant public defender May 2 to represent Mark T. Storms, 46, charged with killing fellow church member Robert E. Braxton III, 27, after intervening in an argument that witnesses say started over a saved seat.
Storms is also charged with endangering the lives of other people attending the Sunday morning service at Keystone Fellowship Church, a multisite congregation started in 2000 by a Southern Baptist church planter from Florida named John Cope.
Now lead pastor of a church that meets on four campuses across the Philadelphia area, Cope preached a special message at the first regular service since the shooting May 1.
“We can’t change this event,” Cope said. “I wish we could. Both families — we’ve got two families here that are hurting, plus many, many in this room — because of our love for the Braxtons and the Storms, there’s a lot of families affected here.”
Cope said during the week he spoke with Al Meredith, retired pastor of Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, scene of a mass shooting that killed seven teenagers in 1999.
“I called him, because if you’ve not experienced you don’t know what to do,” Cope told worshippers. “He said ‘deal with fear.’”
Cope said Meredith shared the story of a junior high girl who returned to church the week after the shooting wearing sneakers who explained: “Pastor, I had to wear these today just in case I have to run.”
“Nobody deserves that,” Cope said. “Nobody deserves to go through what we’re going through together, so we’ve got to be cautious that fear does not set in.”
According to the Reporter News in Lansdale, Pa., assistant public defender Benjamin Cooper filed court papers indicating Storms did not have the financial ability to hire a private lawyer to defend him. Cooper requested the appointment, saying the public defender’s office had already met with Storms and started an investigation.
If convicted, Storms faces a possible maximum sentence of 11 to 22 years in prison.
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