A sword-wielding suspect was reportedly shot after an altercation with police officers inside a Scientology building that left two cops injured on Wednesday.
While a spokesman for the Inglewood Police Department would not confirm to The Daily Beast that a “male adult” suspect was carrying a sword, he did say the suspect was carrying “a weapon” inside a building owned by the Church of Scientology. An official said the two officers involved sustained non-life-threatening injuries.” The suspect was taken to a hospital after the incident.
“We’re unsure if he’ll make it,” an official told The Daily Beast.
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CBS Los Angeles reports the suspect was an “Asian male” who carried “a sword and gun.” The suspect reportedly walked into a building owned by the Church of Scientology, on Market Street in Inglewood, before the “altercation” broke out. Police then reportedly arrived on the scene, and two officers were shot—one in the arm and the other in the hand.
The Church of Scientology Inglewood did not respond to The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
It appears that this isn’t the first violent attack to involve Scientology and swords. In 2008, an Oregon man was killed after he “attempted to attack guests” at the Scientology Celebrity Centre in Hollywood with two samurai swords. NBC Los Angeles reports the man—Mario Majorski—was involved in various threats against the church “allegedly made through faxes and telephone calls” dating back to at least 2005. Majorski was reportedly a Scientologist but left the church about 15 years before his attack.
Earlier this year, a 16-year-old stabbed two Scientology employees while he was being escorted out of the Australian Church of Scientology headquarters in Sydney. According to The Guardian, the teenager allegedly stabbed one of the employees in the neck and killed him. The other employee was reportedly injured.
Swords appear to have some meaning within Scientology. Arthur J. Burks, a science fiction writer, wrote that he had read church founder L. Ron Hubbard’s unpublished manuscript called “Excalibur”—which served as the basis of other foundational texts of the religion. Burks wrote that he suggested the title “Excalibur” to Hubbard because that was the name of “King Arthur’s sword” and said the title had a “certain mystical meaning that suited” Hubbard.
