CT just received this update:
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins made the following comments after an FRC security guard was shot this morning:
“The police are investigating this incident. Our first concern is with our colleague who was shot today. Our concern is for him and his family.”
The guard was shot in the arm, was conscious and breathing after the shooting, and police has taken one person into custody, the Associated Press reports.
“A man entered the FRC offices, was confronted by a security guard and opened fire. The guard and others wrestled him to the ground, MPD says,” a Washington Examiner reporter tweeted.
Focus on the Family founder James Dobson founded the Washington, D.C.-based Family Research Council, which was a division of Focus at one point. It became its own entity in 1992 and promotes social conservative policies.
In Colorado Springs, Focus faced a hostage situation in 1994 when a man walked into the building with a handgun, wore a vest he said contained explosive with a message on his chest in red marker. Kerry Steven Dore was a construction worker who was severely injured in 1992 when he fell from a Focus building.
As told in Dale Buss’s Family Man biography of Dobson, employees and visitors were evacuated as Dore took two female receptionists hostage. Two male security guards offered to substitute themselves for the women, but he took them hostage as well. Four hours later, Dore gave himself up and was eventually sent to prison for 32 years for kidnapping.
In 2010, FRC and several conservative leaders protested the decision by the Southern Poverty Law Center to designate FRC as a hate group. CT has previous coverage of Family Research Council.
This post will be updated as soon as more information becomes available.
