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Downtown Dallas church fire: The latest updates
Services on Sunday inside the church’s main sanctuary are TBD due to concerns with AC units and smoke damage.
DALLAS — Plumes of black smoke were seen rising through the Downtown Dallas skyline Friday evening.
Dallas Fire Rescue (DFR) responded to a fourth-alarm fire just after 6 p.m. at the First Baptist Dallas Church at 1707 San Jacinto St.
When firefighters arrived, they were met with heavy smoke and immediately started attacking the blaze. Officials said at least 100 firefighters were on scene for more than three hours.
DFR confirmed to WFAA that the “structure involved is the secondary chapel.” Chopper 8 captured the moment when the spire toppled over as crews battled the flames.
Vacation Bible School just concluded in the historic sanctuary on Thursday. It’s used for funerals, weddings, and auxiliary events that don’t require the main sanctuary.
Most firefighting operations began significantly shutting down between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Saturday morning, according to DFR. Overhaul companies were on scene throughout Friday night into Saturday morning to ensure safety and to continue extinguishing hot spots, DFR said.
Officials said no one was injured in the fire.
DFR believes the blaze started in the basement. Deacons told WFAA they fear the church’s library, beneath the historic sanctuary, has been lost. It held a majority of the church’s records, they said.
Pastor Robert Jeffress, who was elected pastor of First Baptist Dallas in August of 2007, spoke downtown as firefighters continued to fight the fire, and said he had been baptized and ordained as a minister in that very church.
“I had just left the church a little bit after 6 p.m. when we got word that the church was on fire, our historic sanctuary,” Jeffress said, emotional.
Jeffress grew up at First Baptist Dallas. He was baptized in the Historic Sanctuary at age 9, ordained there when he was 21, and holds many memories of the church.
The building has been around since 1890, Jeffress said and was the home of the church before they moved into a new center about 12 years ago.
“We had just concluded vacation bible school with over 2,000 kids,” Jeffress said. “They were all gone. God has protected us through all of this.”
Jeffress said they don’t know the cause of the fire at this time.
“I’m grateful that the church is not bricks and mortar or wood, it’s people,” he said. “And the people of God will endure. First Baptist Dallas will endure.”
Moments before speaking with Jeffress, WFAA’s cameras captured the reaction to parts of the building collapsing:
Services on Sunday inside the church’s main sanctuary are TBD due to concerns with AC units and smoke damage.
“One way or another, we intend to meet for church this Sunday,” a church spokesperson told WFAA.
Residents from as far as Irving have reported being able to see the fire on the Dallas skyline.
An official cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
Kim Potter was convicted of manslaughter after she shot and killed Daunte Wright in 2021.
BROOKLYN CENTER, Minn. — An upcoming training session with officers at the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board was canceled after they learned Kim Potter was a part of it.
Potter, a former Brooklyn Center police officer, was convicted of manslaughter after she shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop in 2021. She served 16 months of a two-year sentence.
Daunte’s mother, Katie, said she had no idea Potter would be a part of a training session until after it was canceled.
“I was mad and hurt at the same time. I don’t understand why she would have the audacity to feel like she has that right to even go into a community and benefit off our tragedy,” she said.
Katie said she was relieved they canceled it out of respect for her and her family.
“Whenever I hear Kim Potter’s name or hear her doing anything like this it’s like tearing a band-aid off a forever bleeding wound,” she said. “She doesn’t get to triumph off of our tragedy.”
Potter was supposed to speak alongside former Washington County Assistant Prosecutor Imran Ali.
In an email, he said “We have presented before, but minimally. Her participation is usually between 5-10 percent of any training.”
He said money isn’t her objective.
“Most of the speaking has zero compensation. If the travel is out of town, I make sure her travel costs are covered and a small stipend,” Ali said in an email.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said it’s unfortunate the planned training was canceled and hopes they reconsider.
“We should all support and at least respect how victims feel. At the same time, as attorney general, we’re trying to reduce deadly force encounters between police and community,” he said. “I think it is admirable that Kim Potter would want to come forth and tell her story to help other people learn. I mean she has a cautionary tale to tell.”
Ellison believes Potter’s past could help improve policing.
“I think it could be beneficial for public safety, and it could improve policing,” he said. “She can tell them that she spent decades as a police officer, believed in what she was doing, and committed, and still despite that training and that experience committed a lethal error when she killed Daunte Wright.”
However, Katie just doesn’t see how Potter being a part of training sessions can improve policing.
“Nobody can learn from that,” she said. “I don’t think she’s learned anything. If she’d learned anything she would have written us a letter. I haven’t heard anything.”
Katie said she visits her son’s memorial three times a week to feel close to him.
“I talk to him every time I’m out here, and I feel like he hears me,” she said.
A metal sculpture details his face with different symbols crafted into the metalwork.
“This is Daunte’s face with his crown. We have a couple fists embedded into his crown,” she said. “We have the No. 23 which symbolizes his favorite number because of basketball and Michael Jordan… the infinity just means he’s just going to live on forever. His story will forever be known and told.”
A memorial sits next to the artwork that has a picture of Daunte and a copy of his death certificate.
“The death certificate was really important to me because of the fact that it shows he was, it does homicide and gunshot wound. And I want people to remember that he was killed by law enforcement,” she said.
They also planted a flowerbed by the memorial that is currently blooming with red flowers.
Katie said she is more than willing to visit police departments and explain the impact deadly force has on families.
A fundraiser aims to collect around $25,000 to cover the “upfront costs” of constructing the popular winter attraction.
MINNEAPOLIS — A local winter tradition is in jeopardy, forcing two sculptors to ask the public for help.
Austin, Trevor and Connor Bartz, the Bartz brothers, have crafted giant snow sculptures in New Brighton since 2012. Their first creation was a puffer fish, followed by a shark, an octopus, a sea turtle, a whale, a walrus and more. In 2024, the brothers created a 21-foot-tall “Sparky” the sea lion, their biggest creation to date.
Last winter the brothers told KARE 11 they had to harvest snow from parking lots across the metro and build the behemoth inside a shed at Brightwood Hills Golf Course.
“We’re taking sleds of snow from outside on the pond, we’re sledding it inside, bringing it around this way and into the snow factory,” explained Austin Bartz.
Earlier this month, the brothers started a GoFundMe to raise $25,000 to keep their tradition going.
“We still need another $25,000 to cover upfront costs (lighting, labor, supplies, machine costs, gas, lumber, rental costs). Due to the growing popularity this is NOT a cheap event to run.”
The brothers plan for all the proceeds raised by their sculpture to go to the charity World Vision to provide clean water to people in need. If they aren’t able to reach their fundraising goal to build another snow sculpture, the brothers wrote on the GoFundMe that all of the money raised will go to the charity.
Police were first called to the area for a welfare check on a person in Clarkfield, a city around 2 and 1/2 hours west of Minneapolis.
CLARKFIELD, Minn. — The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal (BCA) is investigating an incident in Yellow Medicine County after a suspect shot at law enforcement on Saturday night.
According to information from the Yellow Medicine County Sheriff, the office got a call around 3:15 p.m. for a welfare check on a person in Clarkfield, a city around 2 and 1/2 hours west of Minneapolis. Deputies learned the person had left the city while en route to the call and were told he was in a farm field with a rifle.
As deputies were evacuating people from the home next to the field, officials said the suspect pointed the rifle at them and then fled into the home. Officials said officers set up a perimeter around the house and deputies tried to contact the man.
Officers were not able to convince the man to leave the house and called a SWAT team as backup. The Kandiyohi-Meeker-Willmar SWAT team arrived and they tried to convince the man to leave the house. During the standoff, officials said the man fired a long gun at the team and SWAT returned fire.
The man was struck in the leg, officials said.
After eight hours on site, the SWAT team was relieved by another crew from West Central SWAT and BLR SWAT.
Around 6:15 on Sunday morning, the man left the house and shot a long gun at the SWAT team. One of the team returned fire and struck him.
The extent of the man’s injuries has not been released as of Sunday afternoon, but officials said the team gave the man medical attention and was taken to Hennepin Healthcare via Air Ambulance. He is in stable condition, according to officials.
No other people were injured in this incident, officials said.
The BCA was asked to investigate the use of force by officers.
KARE 11 will update this story as more information is made available.
