Shooting threat to church was ‘fabricated’ by safety team member, Texas cops say
A reported threat to a church congregation during Sunday service got the attention of local law enforcement and even the White House — but the threat was “fabricated,” Texas deputies said.
On Oct. 6, deputies arrived to Church at the Epicenter in Burnet after getting a brief 911 call, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office. Upon arrival, deputies said a safety member told them two “suspicious” men were outside the church, and one had shown a rifle.
The team member, identified as Jacob Wayne Tarver, 45, said he fired multiple shots, and the two men fled in a white minivan, according to deputies.
Law enforcement enlisted the help of surrounding agencies to look for the two men who the security team member said threatened the church, even using helicopters to search, Sheriff Calvin Boyd during a news conference posted by KTBC.
As an investigation into the threat continued, Tarver said he “fabricated” major details, according to deputies.
There was no threat to the congregation and no men brandishing a firearm to a member of church security, according to an Oct. 7 Facebook post from the sheriff’s office.
Now Tarver has been arrested and charged with false report to induce an emergency response, tampering with or fabricating physical evidence and deadly conduct, deputies said.
The Epicenter church said it was “devastated” by the news of the false report, according to an Oct. 7 Facebook post.
“We (now) turn our hearts towards trying to understand what might have led our head of security to fabricate such a serious story,” the church said in the statement. “While we know that these types of threats are real around our state & nation, we have absolutely no idea why this happened.”
Senior Leader Kyle Byrd told KXAN his original social media post about the threat said security “intercepted a team of jihadists seeking to enter our facility with a ‘large caliber rifle with a banana clip.’”
He later removed the post, he told KXAN.
“I reported what I was told, but I believed it, and it caused harm to our community, and we’re sorry for that, as much as we can be for what we knew,” he said, according to KXAN.
Boyd said he did not know why Traver made a false report.
“This is such a big deal, I mean we heard from the state, we heard from Austin, we even heard from the White House,” Boyd said. “It was a big deal and it was really a waste of assets.”
The false report has caused rumors to spread in the community, deputies said, causing “fear, mistrust and animosity.”
Burnet is about a 55-mile drive northeast from Austin.
This story was originally published October 8, 2024 at 12:19 PM.
