A Catholic bishop in Southern California was found dead on Saturday of a gunshot wound, in an incident the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is now investigating as a murder. Source: Crux.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper reported that Bishop David O’Connell was found inside a home in Hacienda Heights, 30 kilometres east of downtown Los Angeles, around 1 pm.
According to information from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, homicide detectives responded to “a shooting death investigation”. A male adult victim was located and pronounced dead at the scene.
The block in question is a residential street lined with one-story ranch-style homes.
Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez confirmed the death, saying Bishop O’Connell, who served in the city for 45 years as a priest and later a bishop, “passed away unexpectedly”.
“It is a shock and I have no words to express my sadness,” Archbishop Gomez said in a statement, calling Bishop O’Connell “a good friend”.
“Bishop Dave was a man of deep prayer who had a great love for Our Blessed Mother,” he said. “He was a peacemaker with a heart for the poor and the immigrant, and he had a passion for building a community where the sanctity and dignity of every human life was honoured and protected.”
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