By Bob Allen
The pastor of First Baptist Church in Lafayette, La., urged church members to pray and be open for “conversations about Jesus” after a deadly shooting in a movie theater in their hometown July 23.
“After every mass shooting I have always thought ‘That could have been my town,’” Pastor Steve Horn posted in a blog July 24. “Well, now my thought has become my reality. It is my town. Tragedy has come to Lafayette, Louisiana — the happiest town in America.”
Sadness struck the southwestern Louisiana community ranked last year by the Wall Street Journal as the happiest city in the United States about 20 minutes into the 7 p.m. showing of the romantic comedy Trainwreck at the Grand 16-Lafayette theater, when police say a 59-year-old drifter named John Russell Houser opened fire on patrons.
Killed in the rampage were 21-year-old Mayci Breaux, who was active in her high school campus ministry and once attended the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., and Jillian Johnson, a 33-year-old small business owner and artist who attended Baptist-affiliated Belmont University 2000-2002 before transferring to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Houser, described as a drifter with a last known address in Phenix City, Ala., who was estranged from his family and living in a local Motel 6, reportedly attempted to flee before being turned back by police and taking his own life. Nine others were wounded, some of them critically.
Aaron Shamp, lead pastor of Redeemer City Church, a Southern Baptist church plant catering to millennials and young professionals in downtown Lafayette, lives 100 yards from the theater and shortly after the shooting gathered with others to pray.
“One was a father waiting to hear from his son who was in the theater,” Shamp, a student in the undergraduate school at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, told the Baptist Message, news journal for the Louisiana Baptist Convention. “He got word from his son an hour or so later. He came and told me and asked about our church. We talked to a few witnesses as well. Thanks for the prayers.”
Horn, who grew up in Lafayette before getting a history degree from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and the M.Div. and Ph.D. in Greek and New Testament from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, drew several lessons from the community’s brush with tragedy.
“We are not immune,” he said. “We had just hoped we were. We never really were.”
“Tragedy opens doors for conversations about Jesus,” he said. “May we be ready and faithful. None of us are promised tomorrow. Be ready.”
According to her Facebook page, Jillian Johnson graduated from Hillwood High School in Nashville, Tenn., in 2000. She married Jason Brown on April 9, 2013, and together they opened Red Arrow Workshop, a gift, apparel, accessories and toy shop in Lafayette.
Johnson summarized her academic career on LinkedIn as “Belmont University, Fine Arts – Graphic Design, 2000-2002, good learning/bad socializing” and “University of Louisiana at Lafayette, B.F.A., Fine Arts – Ceramics, 2002-2004, bad learning/good socializing.”
Mayci Breaux, a native of Franklin, La., who studied at Louisiana State University at Eunice, worked at Coco Eros’ boutique, a women’s apparel store that closed in her memory July 24. Her Facebook status identifies her as in a relationship with Matthew Rodriguez, and many of her photos are of the couple together.