2 Naked Brothers With Fake Gun Arrested Inside Greg Laurie's Harvest Megachurch
Two naked men with a fake gun were arrested Wednesday night inside Pastor Greg Laurie's Harvest Orange County church in Irvine, California, with the suspects having barricaded themselves inside for over two hours.
The men arrested have been identified as brothers Paul Vincent Vielkind, 34, and Brandon Joseph Vielkind, 22, of Riverside. Both have been charged with burglary and felony vandalism.
Laurie responded to the news by stating that he and his family are fine, and that there was minor damage to the church, but no injuries reported.
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KCAL9/CBS2 said SWAT teams were called in after a security guard saw two men carrying what appeared to be a rifle walk into the lobby of Harvest Church, and called the police.
Firefighters, police dogs, and snipers on the roof were all reportedly part of the scene, with the naked men remaining inside the church for more than two hours. The suspects surrendered peacefully, however, and were handcuffed when they walked out.
Laurie posted about the incident on his Facebook page early on Thursday morning, where he wrote:
"There is not much I can tell you at this point except the following — Two men who were thought to be armed broke into the Orange County Harvest church building last night. Police were notified and on the scene within minutes.
"After a brief search and standoff, the suspects were found in the building and apprehended. No one was injured in the process. There was no known motive for the break-in but there were some minor damages to the building," the pastor continued.
"We are grateful to the Irvine police for their quick response. Church operations and services will continue on Thursday without interruption," he added.
Laurie promised supporters to let them know once he finds out more about what happened, and said that he appreciates the prayers.
The megachurch pastor leads some of the largest evangelical gatherings in the United States, with Harvest reporting last week that over 10,000 people decided to follow Jesus Christ at the 28th annual SoCal Harvest revival crusade.
The church said that 10,071 decision cards for Christ were received, and counted the combined crowd for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday night events at Angel Stadium in Anaheim to have reached over 92,000 attendees.
"We count every card because everyone matters," Pastor Richard Garcia, Harvest's director of follow-up, told The Christian Post last week.
"We see, on average, 10 percent of the attendance every year here at Harvest. We had 92,000 people attend over the weekend. That is pretty typical and it was pretty awesome this weekend. We go into it with the expectation that we will mostly see 10 people make a profession of faith."
