The deadly shooting outside a Utah church grew out of a dispute between funeral goers, police say

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A complicated crime scene and uncooperative witnesses hindered Salt Lake City police efforts to investigate a fatal shooting outside a house of worship belonging to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The shooting in a church parking lot Wednesday night left two people dead and six injured, including five who remained hospitalized with police protection Thursday. Investigators said the shooting erupted from a dispute between people who knew each other and were attending a funeral.

No arrests had been made as of early Thursday evening. Authorities say they do not know whether the shooting was gang-related and that they are having trouble getting witnesses to cooperate.

Police do not believe the shooting was random or motivated by animus against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church.

“Our houses of worship are sacred, whatever the affiliation,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said Thursday. “We should all protect those spaces. We should all respect those spaces.”

All the shooting victims were adults. Vaea Tulikihihifo, 46, and Sione Vatuvei, 38, were identified as the two people killed.

The red brick church in northwest Salt Lake City mostly serves Tongan congregants and holds regular worship services in their native tongue, according to its website.

Latter-day Saint missionaries first arrived in Tonga in the early 1890s, according to the church’s website. At first, they had little success and the mission closed in 1897. But a decade later, missionaries opened a school in Neiafu, Tonga’s second-largest town, and began preaching across the islands. Dozens of other schools were started by missionaries and seven remain open. The church's membership in Tonga has grown to 68,000 and 175 congregations.

“Since the 19th century, the church has had a really, really prominent place in Tongan society. Depending on who you ask, somewhere between one-third and two-thirds of everybody who lives in Tonga are members of the LDS church,” said Matthew Bowman, a Claremont Graduate University professor specializing in U.S. religious history.

Today, more than a quarter of the Tongan population in the U.S. resides in Utah, where the church is headquartered. The state's Tongan population is about 23,000 and is mostly concentrated in Salt Lake County, according to census data.

On Wednesday night, residents from a housing complex next to the church flooded outside to help victims and console dozens of people who had been attending a funeral for a man identified by family on social media as Asi Sekona. Several family members could not immediately be reached for comment.

Brennan McIntire said he and his wife, Kenna, heard several loud gunshots from their apartment next to the church parking lot while watching TV. He jumped off the couch and ran outside in flip-flops to see what happened.

“As soon as I came over, I see someone on the ground,” he said. “People are attending to him and crying and arguing.”

Kenna McIntire came outside soon after and was rattled at the sight of first responders lifting an unconscious woman into an ambulance while people huddled around and sobbed.

The couple said they hear gunshots in their neighborhood almost daily, but never right outside their door.

“It was really heartbreaking to hear and see,” Kenna McIntire said.

About 100 law enforcement vehicles were at the scene in the aftermath, and helicopters flew overhead. Police said they were reviewing license plate readers and surveillance videos from nearby businesses in their search for suspects.

The church was cooperating with law enforcement and said it was grateful for first responders' quick efforts.

“We extend prayers for all who have been impacted by this tragedy and express deep concern that any sacred space intended for worship should be subjected to violence of any kind,” church spokesperson Sam Penrod said.

Latter-day Saints have been on heightened alert since four people were killed when a former Marine opened fire in one of their churches in Michigan in September and set it ablaze. The FBI found that he was motivated by “anti-religious beliefs” against the church.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Vaea Tulikihihifo’s last name, which had previously been misspelled by Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd.

Billeaud reported from Phoenix. Associated Press writer Luis Andres Henao contributed from Princeton, New Jersey.

CORRECTS YEAR TO 2026 - Police respond to a fatal shooting in a parking lot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

Police respond to a fatal shooting in a parking lot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Hannah Schoenbaum)

CORRECTS YEAR TO 2026 - People attending a funeral at the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City leave after a fatal shooting in the parking lot Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Laura Seitz/The Deseret News via AP)

CORRECTS YEAR TO 2026 - Police respond to a fatal shooting in a parking lot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Rio Giancarlo/The Deseret News via AP)

CORRECTS YEAR TO 2026 - People hug each other after a fatal shooting in a parking lot of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026. (Laura Seitz/The Deseret News via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that he will allow service members to carry personal weapons onto military installations, citing the Second Amendment and recent shootings at bases across the country.

In a video posted to X, Hegseth said he is signing a memo that will direct base commanders to allow requests for troops to carry privately owned firearms “with the presumption that it is necessary for personal protection.”

He said any denial of a service member's request must be explained in detail and in writing.

“Effectively, our bases across the country were gun-free zones,” Hegseth said. “Unless you're training or unless you are a military policeman, you couldn't carry, you couldn't bring your own firearm for your own personal protection onto post.”

Questions about why service members lacked access to weapons have often emerged following shootings on the nation's military bases. Such shootings have ranged from isolated events between service members to mass casualty events, such as the shootings by an Army psychiatrist at Texas’ Ford Hood in 2009 that left 13 people dead.

Hegseth cited some of the events in his video, including a shooting that injured five soldiers at Fort Stewart in Georgia last year. Officials said the shooter, an Army sergeant who worked at the base, used his personal handgun before he was tackled by fellow soldiers and arrested.

“In these instances, minutes are a lifetime,” Hegseth said. “And our service members have the courage and training to make those precious, short minutes count.”

Defense Department policy has prohibited military personnel from carrying personal weapons on base without permission from a senior commander, with strict protocol for how the firearms must be stored.

Typically, military personnel must officially check their guns out of secure storage to go to on-base hunting areas or shooting ranges, then check all firearms back in promptly after their sanctioned use. Military police are often the only armed personnel on base, outside of shooting ranges, hunting areas or in training, where soldiers can wield their service weapons without ammunition.

Tanya Schardt, senior counsel at the Brady gun violence prevention organization, said in a statement that Defense Department leaders and the military’s top brass have opposed relaxing the current policy, which was originally enacted under President George H.W. Bush.

Schardt noted that most active duty service members who die by suicide do so with a weapon they own personally, not one military-issued, and argued that there will “undoubtedly be an increase in gun suicide and other gun violence.”

While fewer American service members died by suicide in 2024, the suicide rates among active duty troops overall still have gradually increased between 2011 and 2024, according to a Pentagon report released Tuesday.

“Our military installations are among the most guarded, protected properties in the world, and they’ve never been ‘gun-free zones,’” Schardt said. “If there is a problem with violent crime on these installations, then the Secretary of Defense has an obligation to alert the American people and describe how he’s working to prevent that crime.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to members of the media during a press briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)