Robert Batist was a gang member who was killed on August 8, 2012. Family and friends gathered for a funeral on Saturday, August 18, 2012. While a funeral ceremony was taking place at the Gloryland Missionary Baptist Church, suspected rival gang members came by and started shooting at the church.
An off-duty police officer had run out and reportedly returned fire. But no one was injured.
Batist may have deserved what he got for being involved in this gang activity. But to shoot up a church with plenty of innocent people inside is a monumental disgrace. No matter what you think about street gangs or what they do, this crosses every line of acceptable behavior. It is not even because the shooting was at a church like Gloryland Baptist. The problem is there are obviously innocent people in there who have nothing to do with gang activity or membership. This shows how callous some of these people are. This amounted to an act of terror in my opinion, with no care at all for the innocent people inside.