Church Gunman Brought 76 Shells and Expected to Use Them

July 28, 2008— -- The gunman who yesterday shot up a Tennessee church that embraced gays and other liberal causes left behind a long letter fuming that he couldn't find a job and expressing a profound "hatred for the liberal movement," police said today.

Jim D. Adkisson, 58, ranted that "liberals and gays" taking jobs had prevented him from finding work. He wrote that he expected to keep shooting parishioners until the police showed up and killed him, Knoxville, Tenn., Police Chief Sterling Owen told a news conference.

Owen said police recovered 76 shotgun shells after Adkisson allegedly opened fired in the sanctuary of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. Three shells had been fired before church members tackled Adkisson, but two people were killed and five more wounded by the blasts before he was wrestled to the floor.

The angry gunman invaded the Knoxville church on Sunday and began blasting away as more than 200 parishioners were packed inside to watch a children's performance of the musical "Annie."

Adkisson was tackled by church members when he paused to reload while terrified church members ducked beneath pews or ran screaming from the church.

Adkisson, an out-of-work mechanical engineer, left a four-page letter in his car in the church parking lot in which he railed against liberals and the fact that he had been unable to get a job since 2006. Owen said Adkisson was also angry that his food stamps were about to be reduced or eliminated.

"It appears what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, frustration over that and his hatred for the liberal movement," Owen said.

The chief later added, "He did express that frustration that the liberal movement was getting more jobs and he was being kept out of the loop because of his age" and because he wasn't liberal.

"It appears he did choose that church intentionally," Owen said, possibly after it had received some publicity for its advocacy of liberal causes. "We're certainly investigating it as a hate crime."