Dauphin County prosecutors today charged a church and its pastor after a mock "terrorism raid" in March.
The fake raid occurred at Glad Tidings Assembly of God Church in Lower Swatara Township when four men -- one carrying an unloaded but real gun -- rushed into a room full of youth-group participants, put pillowcases over their heads and forced them into a van. The children didn't know the raid was fake. One was injured.
View full sizeGlad Tidings on Fulling Mill Road, Lower Swatara TownshipThe district attorney's office filed charges of false imprisonment, a felony, and simple assault against the church and youth pastor Andrew D. Jordan, 28.
Lower Swatara Police Chief Richard Wiley said he didn't understand the rationale of the church leaders and that he's never witnessed a case like this.
District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. that while the intentions of the church were not necessarily harmful, “they in essence terrorized several children.”
John Lanza, the pastor of the church, said after the incident that the raid is used as a learning experience to show what some missionaries deal with because of their faith.
The mother of a 14-year-old girl who was taken during the incident called police.
After bursting in on the youth group, the raiders prodded the hooded kids into a church van and drove across the parking lot to the pastor's house. They led the teens through the garage, past the pastor's motorcycle with crucifixes painted on its gas tank to an interrogation room in a dark corner of the musty basement.
A single-bulb painter's light was suspended from the ceiling. It illuminated a lone chair. The men questioned each teen for 30 seconds in the room, raising their voices to invoke fear, before releasing them, Lanza said in March.
Lanza and Jordan are still listed as lead and youth pastors, respectively, on the church's website.