Man in Critical Condition after Attempting to Commit Suicide inside an Ohio Church
A 25-year-old father of a one-year-old daughter reportedly attempted to commit suicide in an Ohio church on Monday.
According to WHIOTV7, the man, Vincent Veloz, entered Greenville Baptist Church in Drake County Monday night and spoke with the church’s pastor, Tim Pol. Pol told the local news outlet that Veloz “came to speak with me and the further we talked, the further I realized where the conversation was going and it wasn’t a good thing.”
Veloz then reportedly left the church and retrieved an AR-15 from his vehicle before reentering the church with the firearm faced toward himself. As Veloz retrieved the gun, Pol reportedly called the police and worked to get the other people in the building to safety.
“I was already trying to call the police at that point, I was out here on the steps here but when I saw that, I went back inside and got all the folks that were in here downstairs to barricade themselves and all that — at the same time speak with the police and try to work with him,” Pol said in the report.
After a three-hour standoff with Darke County Police and while speaking with a hostage negotiator, Veloz, in an attempt to commit suicide, tragically shot himself.
According to Veloz’s mother, Jennifer LyAnn Prewitt, he was recently in a car accident, where doctors reportedly treated him for a concussion.
Prewitt told The Christian Post, “On the 16th, the day of his daughter’s party, he was in a car accident. He got a concussion. He was taken to …. hospital where they treated him for a concussion, gave him some medicine. He did not work that night because he was obviously in pain. He had broken his nose and stuff,” she said.
After returning to work, however, Prewitt said her son was “acting very strange and different”. “The nurse sent him to a hospital in Greenville and the doctor there was very upset because the medicine that they gave him was not for concussions and the pain medicine he was given he was having an allergic reaction to it. That’s what was making him so out of whack. So he came home that morning (Monday) and that afternoon is what he did at the church. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the medicine, concussion, personal issues he was having; I have no idea yet,” she added.
Veloz, who is described on a Change.com petition as “hilarious, loving, and kind”, has been charged with aggravated burglary for trespassing on church property with a deadly weapon.
Currently, Veloz is at a Dayton hospital where he is in critical condition.
Photo courtesy: Pixabay
John Paluska has been a contributor for Christian Headlines since 2016 and is the founder of The Daily Fodder, a news outlet he relaunched in 2019 as a response to the constant distribution of fake news.
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