Armed man who killed dog at Fort Worth church threatened ‘further carnage,’ leader says

Fort Worth police said Friday they are not classifying the arrest this week of a heavily armed man at a Unitarian Universalist church as a hate crime.

A church official told the Star-Telegram that man found inside All Peoples Church Unitarian Universalist on Wednesday had been attending services for a few months. Earlier that day, the church discovered he had brutally killed his dog on the property

“We believe this was not an attack on the church’s progressive values, but the actions of a lone disturbed individual,” wrote Dan Sexton, board president of All Peoples Church, in an emailed statement.

Police initially responded to All Peoples Church, formerly known as First Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church, at 1959 Sandy Lane in Fort Worth on Wednesday morning after they received a 911 call about a dead dog in a field behind the church, next to its community garden.

A teacher at a private school that operates in the church building found the dog and called police. Officers arrived to find the dog had been cut open and was surrounded by multiple bullet casings and a rifle. A church security camera recorded shots being fired around 3:45 a.m.

Police returned to the church later that afternoon when they received a call about a man inside holding a shotgun and wearing ammo on his chest. He was immediately taken into custody.

The man has since been identified as 27-year-old Roman Collins, police said. Collins is being held in the Tarrant County Jail on charges of terroristic threat, cruelty to a non-livestock animal, and carrying weapons in a place where they are prohibited.

In a statement to the Star-Telegram on Friday, All Peoples Church administrator Karl Thibodeaux wrote that he had found Collins in the doorway to the church’s library. Collins was wearing a tactical vest stuffed with ammunition and a holstered gun. A long gun lay beside him on a table, he said. The administrator said Collins told him he killed the dog, and that he was planning “further carnage.”

The dog was later identified as Collins’ pet, the statement reads.

Thibodeaux said that the children had left the building and the school had closed for the day, so he was alone when he heard Collins walk in the back door and “slip into the library.” The administrator said he went to see who was there, thinking it might be someone who arrived early for Wednesday evening choir practice.

Thibodeaux told Collins he had to put something in the office. He left the church through a side door and drove to a nearby member’s house to call 911. He told police that Collins had made threats about killing people.

Dozens of law enforcement officers responded quickly, and the arresting officer told Thibodeaux that Collins was waiting by the front door with a gun and said he was waiting for people to arrive, Thibodeaux wrote.

Collins, who according to court records lived about a mile away from the church, does not appear to have a prior criminal record in Tarrant County. He’s being held on $200,000 bond.

Police had the Fort Worth Fire Department’s Bomb/Arson Unit sweep the church, its courtyard and Collins’ car following his arrest. The police department’s SWAT team also searched Collins’ home with the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

When officers searched Collins, they found a shotgun, a large knife, a handgun and several loaded magazines, police said in a news release. Inside his truck, they found a rifle that had been converted to accept handgun magazines.

According to court records, defense attorney Lesa Pamplin was appointed to represent Collins. She declined to comment Friday.

This incident isn’t the first crime that’s occurred at area Unitarian churches in recent months.

In July, Plano’s Community Unitarian Universalist Church was firebombed when someone tossed an accelerant in front of the church and set it ablaze. No one was injured during the incident, but the front door and foyer sustained damage.

Just a few weeks earlier, the Plano church, which like other Unitarian churches affirms the LGBTQ community, had been trolled by anti-LGBTQ YouTubers who pretended to be gay and made fun of the church, the Dallas Morning News reported.

There’s still no word on who set the Plano fire. A representative with Plano Fire Prevention didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking updates Friday. Plano authorities said last month that their initial investigation didn’t find a connection between the video prank and the fire.

A representative for the Community Unitarian Universalist Church told the Star-Telegram that they never found out who started the fire — the little evidence they had from eyewitnesses didn’t get off the ground.

Representatives for the Unitarian Universalist Association in Boston could not immediately be reached for comment on the incidents early Friday.