Officials with the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s have the bomb squad, FBI, and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on scene at two churches in Las Cruces.
Advertisement
All masses at both churches have been canceled.
Less than half-hour later, police were called to Holy Cross Catholic Church, about three miles away, where an explosive device had gone off in a trash can near the entrance of the church, according to police.
Las Cruces police officer Joseph Campa talks to Holy Cross Catholic… “I mean, I knew it had to be more than a gunshot”, Anderson told the Las Cruces Sun-News newspaper (http://bit.ly/1ME7PEp ). “But it was very loud, and I just kept on saying the words”.
Eyewitness Ann Marie Sullivan, a college student and parishioner at Holy Cross said: ‘I had just received communion and had gotten back to my chair when the police came up and said we need everyone to leave out the doors calmly.’. Police learned that several worshippers were gathering inside the church but services had not yet begun at the time of the explosion.
“Just the fact that they were at churches the same day a half an hour apart or so, that leads us to believe it could be something related”, police spokesman Dan Trujillo told the Las Cruces News. Bomb-sniffing dogs were brought in to search the building. Trujillo said police are advising them to look out for anything suspicious, but don’t inspect anything themselves.
Advertisement
A similar explosion occurred 20 minutes later near the Holy Cross Church on Miranda Avenue.
