Nearly 16 years ago, Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth dealt with a similar tragedy to the one that played out Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina when a gunman stormed into a Wednesday night prayer service and opened fire.
Nearly 16 years ago, Wedgwood Baptist Church in Fort Worth dealt with a similar tragedy to the one that played out Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina when a gunman stormed into a Wednesday night prayer service and opened fire.
In 1999, there were 500 kids -- most of them teens -- inside the Wedgwood Baptist Church sanctuary when a 47-year-old man ran through the door and started shooting.
The painful memories of that night were stirred up by Wednesday night's shooting in Charleston.
"People ask, 'have you gotten over the shooting?' We'll never get over it, we got through it, but this kind of thing reminds us again and again, what a violent, evil world we live in and how much this world needs the love of Jesus Christ," said Wedgwood Baptist Church senior pastor Al Meredith.
Meredith wasn't with Wedgwood when the shooting took place, but Jeff Laster was.
"It's something you will deal with all your life," said Laster. "As he stepped into the foyer, he reached under his sweatshirt and pulled out a gun and shot me twice."
When the shooting stopped, 8 people, including the gunman were dead.
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"There's probably not a day that goes by that I don't think about it a little bit," said Laster. "It gets somewhat easier, as time goes by, but you never really forget it."
The shooting at Wedgwood Baptist was just months after the Columbine school shooting in Colorado. Since that time, statistics show attacks against schools and places of worship have only increased.
