Thomas Von Goetz, 56, has been charged after two incidents at churches in Maryland. He is alleged to have poured whiskey in holy water and thrown tangerines at parishioners. According to police, the suspect entered Holy Angels Catholic Church after 5 p.m. on December 24. He is alleged to have dropped an onion on the altar. When a parishioner followed Von Goetz, the man threw oranges at him.
Later that evening Midnight Mass at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Leonardtown, the suspect disrupted the service by pouring whiskey into the holy water and threatening the parishioners. When police escorted him away Von Goetz attempted to hit people with a whiskey bottle. He has been transported to the hospital for a medical evaluation. He has been charged with second-degree assault, disorderly conduct, defacing religious property, religious crime against a group, obstructing a religious exercise, threat of mass violence, and disturbing the peace.
Some church attacks have been much more serious. According to police, the man who aimed a gun at church security in Fort Wayne wanted to “kill everyone.” Tyler Leavitt, 40, is facing a laundry list of charges from the incident on December 7th. According to court documents, Levitt arrived at the living nativity even with his wife before waving a gun at police officers providing security. After confronting the suspect, police apprehended the suspect in his truck.
The Fort Wayne-based, Central Ministries Church, holds an open-air living nativity event every year where over 100 worshipers can attend at once. However this year, there was near near-miss incident that left churchgoers shaken. As the event wrapped up, Tyler Levitt drove his pickup truck into the Central Ministries parking lot.
According to police, there was one other person in the truck, who authorities identified as his wife. The report states that after Levitt arrived at the Church, a New Haven Police Department officer who was working at the event as security greeted the pair. The suspect responded to the greeting by pointing a loaded handgun at the officer.
He returned to his truck and then drove farther on the church campus. Levitt started screaming that he ” “wanted to kill everyone there.” Thankfully, security was able to keep the suspect from driving into the crowd. They stopped his truck. An officer quickly grabbed the handgun from Levitt, but he reversed and made another pass at the crowd.
Court documents state that Levitt accelerated towards the attendees putting attendees and participants of the live nativity scene in danger.” However, the truck veered into a nearby ditch where it became stuck. Tyler Levitt grabbed his wife and used her as a human shield. According to officers he was armed with a knife. When the authorities went to detain him, the suspect grabbed an officer’s patrol rifle and attempted to pull it away.
The same record reports that “Officers had to use force to restrain the Defendant and take him into custody because the Defendant would not obey verbal commands.” Levitt was arrested and charged with several serious crimes. These include criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon, resisting law enforcement, battery committed with a deadly weapon, pointing a loaded firearm at another, disarming law enforcement officer, and disorderly conduct.