THE SELMA TIMES-JOURNAL

The two separate shootings near Denver on Sunday have left Colorado residents looking for answers.

Local residents who moved here from Colorado have been watching news accounts closely.

Nine people were shot in two separate shootings, leaving three dead. Police there said Monday the shooting in Arvada and the one in Colorado Springs were committed by the same man.

Members of the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit that relocated its headquarters to Selma from its base in Parker, Colo., say they were shocked and saddened by the ordeal.

None of the foundation’s staff or volunteers knew anyone affected.

Duke said Arvada is north of Denver, and Colorado Springs is nearly two hours south of Denver. The former home of the Freedom Foundation was about an hour from Colorado Springs, Duke said.

Sunday morning the man entered a Christian missionary training center in the Denver suburb of Arvada with a handgun killed two young missionaries and wounded two others shortly after midnight. Police there said the man had asked for help.

The identity of the gunman, witnesses said dressed in black wearing combat boots, was not released. Later on Sunday the gunman walked into the parking lot of New Life church after Sunday services and opened fire with an assault rifle, injuring six. There were about 7,000 people still inside the evangelical church when a female security guard shot and killed the gunman.

The New Life Church was founded 20 years ago by pastor Ted Haggard who resigned in disgrace a year ago after admitting to sexually immoral conduct following a friendship with a male prostitute.