Eyewitness News4 reports:
Multiple people were stabbed at a church in northwest Albuquerque on Sunday.KRQE reports four to five people were stabbed and two are in critical condition.
Albuquerque police spokesperson Tasia Martinez said officers are investigating the stabbing at St. Jude Thaddeus Parish, 5712 Paradise Blvd NW.
No word yet if the perpetrator has been caught or not....[Update below- In custody]
[Update] Twitter user @theladderman56 provided eyewitness accounts before the media did.
Story is still developing, will update when more is known.
[Update] More details from LA Times:
Two parishioners told the Los Angeles Times that after communion at the St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church on Sunday morning, a man in his teens or early 20s leaped from the pews and stabbed the choir's lead singer while the choir was singing.
"While that was going on, people were just panicking. It was scary, you wouldn’t think something like that would happen in church," Reyes Stinson, 18, told The Times.
Another parishioner, Vanessa Lucero, 14, told The Times she was sitting right behind the man, who "was kind of twitchy, sketchy looking. He had a tattoo of an upside-down star on his wrist."
Lucero said the man climbed over the pews, punched and then repeatedly stabbed the choir's lead singer.
"He said, like, 'False preacher!' " Lucero said. "I don’t know why.”
The congregation subdued the attacker, at which point more parishioners could have been stabbed, Stinson said.
After the suspect was in handcuffs, Lucero said, "Old ladies were telling him, 'God bless you, forgive yourself,' and he was saying, 'You don’t know about the Masons.' "
Neither witness had seen the man before. After the attack, Stinson said that the choir's lead singer had stab wounds on his left arm and that his jacket was "torn to pieces."
“At this point, we’re just trying to deal with it," Father John C. Daniel said in a brief phone interview with The Times. "It sounds like everybody is going to be OK.”
In a statement, Albuquerque police confirmed that the suspect was in custody but did not release his identity.
"It has been determined that he is not a parishioner," police said. "As to the motive regarding the multiple stabbing, this has not yet been determined."
[Update] Is this "The Masons" he was talking about?
[Update] Identity of suspect released:
Albuquerque police have identified the 24-year-old man who is accused of stabbing four people at a Catholic church as a Sunday service was nearing its end.
Police spokesman Robert Gibbs says Lawrence Capener is now being interviewed by police and is expected to face felony charges.
It's not yet known whether Capener has an attorney.
Police say Capener jumped over several pews at St. Jude Thaddeus Catholic Church around noon Sunday and walked up to the choir area where he began his attack.
The injuries to the four church-goers weren't life-threatening.
All four were being treated at hospitals.
An off-duty police officer and others at the church subdued Capener and held him down until police arrived.
[Update] NY Daily News is reporting also.
