Armed Man With Flamethrowers Stopped Outside High Point Church
An alert congregant and an off-duty officer stopped a heavily armed man carrying a notebook of church and school addresses before he could act in High Point, North Carolina.
What Happened
On Sunday morning, June 28, 2026, at about 10:15, High Point 911 received a call about a man sitting in a truck in the parking lot of Wesley Memorial Church at 1225 Chestnut Drive. Services were underway. The caller said the man had a gun and was dressed in camouflage. An off-duty officer who was working at the church responded to the lot immediately. Additional officers arrived within minutes. They disarmed the man and took him into custody without incident. No one was hurt.
The man was identified as William S. Milliken III, 44, of Thomasville. He was wearing a plate carrier, a type of body armor. Before officers reached him, he had approached a man on the property, presented himself as a law enforcement officer, and claimed he was there to enforce a smoking violation at the church.
A search of his truck told a different story than a smoking complaint. Officers reported finding two flamethrowers, two crossbows, a carbon-dioxide powered launcher built to resemble a handgun, three knives, more than five hundred rounds of ammunition, rolls of black duct tape, and four oxycodone pills. He was charged with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, impersonation of a law enforcement officer, and possession of a Schedule II controlled substance.
The detail that should hold the attention of every team leader reading this came out in the bond hearing. According to court documents, Milliken was carrying a notebook filled with addresses of churches, schools, and public buildings. He also had two radios with police scanners, GPS coordinates, handcuffs and keys, a copy of the North Carolina Tactical Interoperability Guide marked public safety sensitive, a weatherproof notebook, an enlarged state map, and water for hydration. The court recorded the reason for denying bond plainly. Police had reason to believe he was a danger to the public because he has experience with bombs and is believed to have mental health problems. He was denied bond and is being held at the Guilford County Jail. His next court date is July 24.
A man with that inventory did not drive to one church by accident. He arrived prepared, armored, and carrying a list.
This Was a Complex Attacker, Not Just a Shooter
For two years I have been telling you that the threat to the church is moving past the lone gunman with a pistol. This case is the picture of what I mean. Set the firearms aside for a moment and look at the rest of the load. Two flamethrowers. Two crossbows. Duct tape. Body armor. Police scanners. A man that police believe has experience with bombs. That is not a single-mode threat. That is a person assembling the tools for fire, edged weapons, ranged weapons, and possibly explosives, all at once.
We saw the same shape at the Latter-day Saints meetinghouse in Grand Blanc, Michigan, in September of last year, where the attacker combined a vehicle, gunfire, and fire to turn a place of worship into a kill zone. A team that has trained only for a man walking in the front door with a handgun is not ready for that. Your active shooter doctrine still holds, and the RACE Framework still drives your response, but your planning has to account for an attacker who brings fire to defeat a lockdown, who brings armor to defeat your defenders, and who may bring a device to defeat the building itself. Train your people to recognize and respond to more than one weapon system in the same event.
The Notebook Means No Church Is Too Small
The single most sobering item recovered was the notebook full of addresses. Churches, schools, and public buildings, written down together. That tells you something hard and true. To a man in this condition, your congregation is not chosen for what you believe or how large you are. You are chosen because you are soft, gathered, and predictable. You meet at a known time, at a known address, behind doors that are usually unlocked and usually unwatched.
The “we are too small to be a target” mindset is the vulnerability, not the protection. Wesley Memorial is not a megachurch. The list did not care. Every leader who has told himself his congregation is too rural, too quiet, or too poor to draw an attacker needs to read this case and understand that the man with the notebook was not making those distinctions. He was making a list. The only question that protects you is whether someone is watching your lot when a stranger in camouflage pulls in and sits.
Awareness in the Lot Is Where This Was Won
Notice where this incident was stopped. Not at the sanctuary doors. Not in the aisle. In the parking lot, before the man ever got near the people. It was won by two things working together. First, an ordinary person on that property saw a man in camouflage sitting in a truck with a gun and decided that was worth a phone call. Second, there was a trained, armed responder already working at the church who could move to the threat the moment the call came in.
That is the model. Eyes outside, trained presence inside, and a culture where a congregant who sees something wrong is expected to say so rather than talk himself out of it. The lot is your first line, and most teams give it the least attention. Put someone on it. Give greeters and lot volunteers a simple standard for what gets reported and to whom, and make clear that no one will be embarrassed for calling in a person who turns out to be harmless. The cost of one unnecessary call is nothing. The cost of staying quiet about a man in body armor with a notebook of addresses is everything.
You Cannot Reason With What You Cannot Predict
Police stated their belief that this man has mental health problems, and they recovered a Schedule II narcotic from his truck. When mental illness and drug use occur together, the substance worsens the psychiatric symptoms and accelerates what clinicians call decompensation, the breakdown of a person’s ability to think clearly, regulate emotion, and control impulse. The cover story he gave proves the point. He told a man he was there as an officer enforcing a smoking violation. Nothing about that is coherent.
Do not try to make sense of the motive in the moment, and do not wait to understand a man before you respond to what he is doing. You will not talk him back to reason, and you cannot predict his next move from his last one. Train your people to act on behavior and indicators, not on a theory of why. A stranger in armor, in camouflage, impersonating police, sitting on your property, is a threat regardless of what is happening inside his head. The response is the same whether his reason is hatred, ideology, or a mind that has come apart. You watch, you report, you intervene early, and you do not stand in front of him hoping the words will land.
Biblical Perspective
The man in this case believed he was operating in secret. He sat in a lot with a notebook, armored and armed, convinced no one was paying attention. Scripture has a word for that exact posture, and for the God who sees it.
“They hold fast to their evil purpose; they talk of laying snares secretly, thinking, ‘Who can see them?’” (Psalm 64:5, ESV)
David is describing an enemy who plots in the dark and trusts the dark to hide him. The wicked man’s confidence rests entirely on the belief that his planning is invisible. He keeps his lists, sets his snares, and tells himself that no one is watching. This is the spirit of a man who writes down addresses and drives to a church believing he has thought of everything. But David does not end there. He answers the hidden plotter with the God who is not blind to any of it. “But God shoots his arrow at them; they are wounded suddenly” (Psalm 64:7). The plot that was built in secret is exposed and broken in an instant, often through means the plotter never accounted for. A phone call from a stranger in a parking lot is exactly the kind of arrow David has in mind.
The second passage speaks to what your teams provide when they stand watch.
“He said, ‘Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.’ Then Elisha prayed and said, ‘O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.’ So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (2 Kings 6:16-17, ESV)
Elisha’s servant panicked because he saw only the enemy. He could not see the protection that was already present and arranged around him. The lesson is not that we wait passively for chariots of fire. The lesson is that God works through what He has placed around His people, and on that Sunday in High Point, what He had placed was an alert congregant and an off-duty officer already on the ground. The congregation inside likely never knew the danger that sat in their lot, just as the servant could not see the host on the hillside. Your task is to be the means God uses. You are the eyes that see the man others miss, and the trained hands that stand between him and the people of God before the threat ever crosses the threshold.
Final Assessment
A heavily armed man in body armor, carrying flamethrowers, crossbows, scanners, and a notebook of churches and schools, drove to a congregation during Sunday services with a plan. He was stopped in the parking lot, without a shot fired, because someone saw him and made a call, and because a trained responder was already there to act on it. That is not luck. That is what a layered, alert posture produces.
Take the right lessons from it. The modern threat to the church is a complex attacker who may bring fire, armor, edged weapons, and explosives in a single event, and who selects targets from a list that does not care how small or quiet you are. The defense is not a single armed man in the sanctuary. It is awareness that begins in the lot, a congregation trained to report what is wrong, and responders prepared to intervene early and decisively, before reason or motive can be debated. High Point shows you both the threat and the answer in the same morning. Build your team to be the answer.
A Final Word
If this debrief sharpened how you see your own church, leave a comment below and tell me what you would change about your parking lot coverage this week. Then share this with your pastor or your team leader. The conversation that prevents the next one starts with the people who read this and act.
Copyright © 2026 Keith Graves. All rights reserved.
This is the exact reason to train for head shots. A LOT!!!
I want you to go to Christian Warrior Training and watch the video Keith put together about the right way and the wrong way to approach a suspicious vehicle in the parking lot. If you haven't seen it yet, or this would be a good time to review.