Prosecutor: No charges in church disturbance death
Source: Associated Press
Prosecutor: No charges in church disturbance death
| December 20, 2014 | Updated: December 20, 2014 3:26pm
INDIAN LAKE, N.Y. (AP) Churchgoers won't face any charges in the death of an armed man they restrained after he caused a violent disturbance during an upstate New York service, according to prosecutors.
Jason's Berg's death, "although tragic, was not the result of criminal behavior," Hamilton County District Attorney Marsha Purdue said in a statement Friday.
Berg, 44, was drunk and carrying a loaded handgun in his pants waistband June 28 when he burst into St. Mary's Church in Indian Lake near the end of an afternoon Mass, with 35 people worshipping, prosecutors said.
The Rev. Philip Allen later recalled he had just risen and said, "Let us pray."
"And the shout back was, 'Pray for me!'" Allen told WRGB-TV last summer.
Berg then threw candles and other items into the congregation, cursed at the priest and advanced menacingly down the aisle toward him, according to prosecutors. A teenage altar server tried to tackle Berg, and then several parishioners in their 60s and 70s wrestled Berg to the floor. Berg struggled with them, and a churchgoer got his gun away from him, prosecutors said.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Prosecutor-No-charges-in-NY-church-disturbance-5970684.php
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Charges? Seriously had to announce this?
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Amazing that charging these folks even crossed his mind.