2 die in Miracle Valley battle
Effort to arrest 3 leads to violence
By Paul Brinkley-Rogers, R.H. Ring and Don Dale
The Arizona Daily Star
MIRACLE VALLEY — A leader of a controversial all-black church here and another church member were shot to death yesterday in a wild melee that left at least two lawmen wounded and dozens more with broken arms, cuts and bruises.
Nine people were arrested after the bloody confrontation. It erupted shortly after 9 a.m. when deputies keeping watch on the community from the sheriff's substation across the road responded to a call for help from two other deputies, who were shot as they supported Deputy Pat Halloran, who was trying to serve three traffic-related arrest warrants.
People are also reading…
An attempt to serve the same warrants Friday night failed when the two arresting officers were surrounded by scores of club-wielding church members and forced to withdraw.
One of those killed yesterday was William Thomas Jr., 33, son of the church pastor, the Rev. Frances Thomas, and the militant theoretical leader of the church. He suffered gunshots in the arm and the side. The other church member killed was identified as Augusta Tate, 52. Tate was William Thomas' father-in-law. Autopsies are to be performed today in Tucson.
At least five injured lawmen were taken to Sierra Vista Community Hospital, two suffering from gunshots and the rest suffering from broken bones, cuts and bruises. One sheriff's deputy, David Jones, was transferred to St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson. He suffered shotgun wounds in the face and upper chest, and was reported in stable condition last night.
The other lawmen, including Sgt. Larry Dever, who was shot along with Jones, were treated at the Sierra Vista hospital and released.
Two injured church members were transferred from Sierra Vista hospital to Tucson hospitals. Roy Williams, whose spine was severed by a gunshot, was listed in critical condition at Tucson Medical Center in Tucson. And John Jamison, who was shot in the shoulder, was taken to University Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition.
Deputies who responded to the call for help were punched, beaten with pipes and sticks, stabbed with broken soda bottles and then shot at with shotguns and rifles.
Long expected, the shooting finally comes
By Paul Brinkley-Rogers
© 1982 The Arizona Daily Star
MIRACLE VALLEY — "You've got to kill us if you want us, man," Robert Luckett yelled at the sheriff's deputy backing away from a woman with a large rock in her hand.
Then Luckett screamed, "Wait right here till I come back with a gun, and then we'll see who's the dead man."
But by the time Luckett ran back, with nunchakus — an Oriental weapon — instead of a gun, Deputy Ray Thatcher was gone. He was lost in a sea of church members attacking him and 35 other deputies on Axehead Drive with everything from teeth to gun butts.
That's what Arizona Daily Star photographer Jim Davis and I saw first as we leaped from my pickup after following close on the heels of half a dozen sheriff's patrol cars responding to an urgent appeal for help.
A few minutes earlier, two deputies had driven into the valley to try to serve a warrant for a traffic violation on Frank Bernard, a member of the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church. They were quickly surrounded by angry church members, and called for help.
We heard the backup sheriff's cars roaring into the valley from across Arizona 92, jumped into the truck, and stayed with them in the dust.
Standing there, watching the anger, the hate and the fury of the church members, it didn't really seem possible. Not in this quiet neighborhood of single-story homes built by ardent followers of Jesus Christ.
At times, in past months, deputies had told me that one day it would come to this — someone getting shot. I had agreed.
