Church shooting called hate crime

Police investigating shots fired Saturday at a Mormon church in Summerlin are treating the incident this morning as a religion-related hate crime, but it isn't clear which religion was being targeted.

The Jewish congregation of Temple Beth Am, which has a synagogue next door, has been using the Mormon church at 9011 Hillpoint Road to accommodate larger crowds for the High Holy Days.

Rosh Hashanah began Friday and services continued Saturday, when the shots apparently were fired a short time before the services. Next weekend is Yom Kippur and the shooting incident will not alter the location of the services, church officials said.

Police spokesman Steve Meriwether said the investigation would be turned over to the department's Gang Unit, probably sometime today.

"We don't get very many of these incidents," Meriwether said, "but they do happen."

He said this morning no arrests have been made in the incident. Investigators, while they are treating the shooting as a hate crime, will determine whether it might have been something else, such as vandalism, he said.

William Stoddard, a spokesman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said today he had not heard about the shooting and had no comment.

Justice of the Peace Doug Smith, who is a member of the Hillpoint Road Mormon Church, said Rabbi Mel Hecht notified him about 9 a.m. Saturday that a bullet had shattered one of the glass doors on the north side of the Mormon church.

Smith found three bullet casings from a .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol in the middle of the street and covered them with orange traffic cones until police arrived.

Metro Police investigating the incident noted that there were no reports by residents near the church of shots being fired.

The officers noted, however, that the pistol used was a relatively low-powered weapon .

Sun reporter

Jerry Fink contributed to this report.

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