Anyone know anything about the Christian based Victory Church? Anyone have any of those near you? I experienced a horrible ordeal with them today. You can read below about the whole incident. But, I am curious if anyone is a member, or knows of the church. I would like action to be taken, but I don't really know where to go.

Anyhow, the deals. Long read, but would appreciate the time and after-thoughts.

My dad got jacked by a bunch of Church goers from the Arizona Victory Church. He got beat up pretty good, and I was attacked as well. I faired well, and didn't get injured (only hurt a few others). But in the end, my father had to go to the ER in Surprise Arizona (Del Web hospital).

It started on Saturady, May 7th, at some "magic show". My uncle aquired some free "Magic show" tickets, but was able to attend due to the loss of my aunts mother. So, they gave the tickets to my parents. I came into town (Surprise, AZ) to suprise my mother for mothers-day. Being that the tickets were free, we decided to attend the show.

The ticket (we have 1 extra one) is described as follows on the front:
"the Masters of Mystery"
"A night of Magic"
"Saturday, MAY 7th at 7:00 PM
"Featuring Illusionists... BRETT AND KARI SHAW"

It also has a picture of Brett Shaw holding some pigon or dove bird and his magical suit.

The back of the ticket states:
"Andre Kole says...."
"Through the years I have collaborated with David Copperfield on each of his television specials. Recently I had the pleasure of seeing Brett and Kari Shaw's wonderful evening of entertainment. Their show combines mystery, comedy, audience participation, along with a number of spectacular stage effects. I am pleased to recommend their show for a delightful evening of entertainment and inspiration."
"Admission: $5.00 Adults | $3.00 Kids"
"12545 W. Bell Rd., Surprise AZ | Info: 623-221-0036
at the Windmill Suites (Between Dysart Rd & El Mirage Rd)

It also has the date and time in the left corner, and the verbiage "Seating is limited" in the top right. Also there is a few pictures on the card of the guy doing magic tricks and what not.

So, the event appeared to be some-what legit. It wasn't until we were waiting to be seated, that I reviewed the ticket further and read that it wasn't this guy (Brett Shaw) who worked with David Copperfield, but someone else who was recomending the show. Yet, the way everyone at the hotel was talking, it was some-what misleading. But never-the-less, that made us chuckle a little and lowered our expectations.

On to the show... The magic tricks were horrible. Quite horrible, and actually comical. Things didn't go right, and the magician had a glass eye, which made it even more goofy when he had to fix it during the show. Most of his tricks were the ones you would expect a 12 year old to practice. But again, being that we felt bad for the guy, my father (Retired air traffic controller, very professional) tried to help the guy by starting all the clapping sessions and "wooting" accordingly.

The room this was being conducted in, was a mini-conference room (that has dividers) of the hotel. There were 20 chairs formed in rows, which extended about 10 chairs deep. There were about 200+ people in this little room, with kids flowing in the walk lanes and left/right side of the whole room. The emergency exit doors were also zip-tied off, thus forcing people through the main double-door in the back. Thinking this was a bad-fire hazard, we only prayed nothing would go wrong or his act required fire tricks. It was a nightmare ready to happen. He did his fire tricks, but to our luck, he failed on them thus preventing the real show.

ANYHOW, half way through the show, he indicates he is going to talk about his life and we need to pay attention, and this relates to his next trick. He starts off saying that he was born retarded and lived as poor as you could be. They had no running water, and only an outhouse in the back. He had 4 brothers, and his purpose in life was to be sacrificed by his parents; whom were devil witches.

WTF????

He further goes on to tell that his parents were devil warshipers, and he was locked behind some matress in their little shack. If his brothers were to try to talk to him, they would be beaten very badly and go to hell immediately.

Then he leads into this story about the state of New Mexico coming and taking him away. They put him into a state mental hospital, and declared him legally insane. At the age of 8, he was adopted by some foster family. At the age of 16, he wondered into a church and found god. Within two weeks of prayer, he was cured of being retarded.

WTF???? Isn't this a magic show? This is some odd cult!

So then this magician guy pulls out this long metal rod with foam ***** on it. Orange, Purple, Blue. Orange is to equal god. Purple is to equal evil. Blue is to equal man/woman. He then goes into some church sermon about the creation of man and the Adam/Eve story. As he describes this, he shows how god can't walk next to man because of their sins (the purple ball). He then pulls out a huge cross with metal hooks on the end of it, and inserts it into the purple ball. At that point he rolls one eye in the back of his head (remember, he has a glass eye), and says some prayer/chant. And then lifts the purple ball from the metal rod.

By this point, I am pretty pissed off. This is complete deception, and is trying to scare these kids into some cult-type religion. I survey the room, and half the people have the same look on their face, the other half didn't know what was going on and was watching closely. Next, he calls up all the children and have them dance around him and does this long prayer where they repeat after him.

I cant take this anymore, and get-up and say what bull-crap this is and make a b-line toward the emergency exit. Guess what? Its locked. So I make a loud scene and go out the rear. Nearly half of the 200+ people follow.

My parents and I leave, wondering what the hell just occured. We get home, and I call and leave messages with the local fire departement about the fire-risk. I call the hotel back, and try to get further information about it all. The hotel indicates: "The magic show was in conjunction with Victory Chapel, requested by Pastor Lopez.” In asking if he was in attendance, they said no he was not.

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Jumping to today.

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We are driving to go go-cart racing for Mothers-day, and drive by the Windhill hotel. We laugh about the indicent last night, and notice a sign out front: "Victory Church services". At this point, my father decides to go pull in and talk to the pasture about the whole deal. He wanted to make sure that the pastor Lopez knew what this magic guy did. It is one thing to hold a magic show, it is another thing to talk about sacrificing people unless they pray. Because the Victory Church was a Christian church, we assumed he didn't know the tactics this magician guy was doing it.

He gets out of the car, and asks for me to come with him. My mother stays in the car, and waits for us.

We get inside the Hotel, and asked if the pastor was here. We then asked to speak with him, and was lead to the same place where the magic show was; yet it was re-partitiioned off and the sermon was being held on the opposite side. We are then lead around the outside (where the patio is, for the entrance was the emergency exit door) to get to an open door.

The door is open, with a man in a suit holding it. Right outside is a table with two women and a few children running around. One of the women at the table was the magicians wife. My dad walks up and talks to the door man, asking if the pastor is in this sermon, and when it was going to be over. I was standing on the opposite side of the door, peaking through the crack to see who was talking up front.

I didn't quite hear the conversation at the door the whole way, but got the drift that the guy at the door didn't want us to be there (may have recognized us from the Magic show). So my father leans in and asks the pastor if he knew that this magic guy was trying to brain wash kids. He repeated himself twice, for the guy on the microphone asked "what? Who?".

This is when "hell" breaks loose.

The pastor tells my father to leave. He says, "Ok, just wanted to let you know that it is a crappy way to decieve little kids into thinking they were to be sacrificed if they didn't pray to your beliefs". At this point, I turn to walk away back towards the lobby of the hotel. I figured my father said his business, and we were to leave. I get about 10-15 feet away, and turn around looking for him to be following.

My father was about 5 feet from the door, with the pastor pushing him. My dad had his hands up telling him he was leaving, and if this was typical "behavor of the church turning its cheek". He said it to be a smartass, but was also saying "ok, I am leaving" over and over.

I come walking back up to them, yelling at them to not touch him. I was very stern and specfically told him he "had no right to put his hands on my father, and if he didn't stop, he would deal with me". This proved to do nothing, and the pastor continue to push my 54 year old father around. I got about a foot away from them and yelled "enough" to the pastor and put my arm between them, grabbing my dads left shoulder to pull him out of there.

Out of no where, the door guy in the suit goes to put me into a headlock. It is the kind where he goes under my arm and cusps his hands behind my head. He did it so fast and hard, it hurt like a son-of-a-*****. Then the pastor took a swing at me, but I pushed the guy back that was holding me out of the range from the punch of the pastor. This then caused my dad to go after the guy holding me, in which the 240+ lb woman (wife of the magic guy) to jump on him. Soon following that, the pastor then joined in on hitting my father.

I got seperated from the my father, about 10-15 feet away wrestling with the guy who has me in a headlock. Instead of really hurting the guy (I do Krav Maga every week), I did as little as possible to just get away and get to my father. I lifted my legs, thus putting the weight on the guys arms, causing him to loose position. I then elbowed him in the sternum as hard as I could, followed by an upper-cut to his *****. He bent over in pain, and I pushed him away.

I immediately moved back toward my father, to see him on the ground with 4 people on top of him punching/kicking. I pick up my pace, and the by the time I get to the door, the guy who was doing the magic tricks comes out with his microphone and yells "Get the devil out of him!".

I circle around him to get the guys off my father from behind, and two people try to dive tackle me and push me into the wall. The guy in the suit who put me in a headlock before came back over and tried to help, but again, I hunkered down and did two quick jabs towards the those guys and in their ***** as well. The guy who originally had the headlock on me then backs off putting his hands up in front of him saying "stop".

At this point I am making a "b-line" at my father, yelling at everyone to get the **** off of him. I am pushing people as hard as I can away, until Jim the Windhill maintance guy, comes over and tries to interviene. By this point everyone started to scatter and went back into the Windhill conference room, except for the pastor. He was still holding my father down on the ground, and I was yelling at him to let him go. The Jim guy was trying to hold me back, while I was swatting at the pastors hands which were holding my father.

Finally the Jim guy gets in front of my father and the pastor long enough for me to get my dad off the ground. Yet, the pastor guy kept trying to be badass. He and I had words back and forth, while I am trying to tend to my father. He made continous threats to me, in which I replied "I am standing right here, come and try it or get the **** away". After a few more words, the pastor guy went back into the conference area.

I ran to the front desk and made sure that they were calling the police, and gave them my ID and asked for EMS to come.

The police came, and from that point forward, things got worse for us. My mom came in once the fire-fighters & ems folk arived, and she was all hysterical from seeing my father all bloody and laying on the floor with EMS. This almost got her arrested for disorderly conduct. They ended up taking my father to the emergency room, in which we were released to visit with him there.

A few officers worked the case, and spoke to a few of the people from the church/cult thing, and met us back at the hospital. It is amazing what can transpire by a group of people. At the hospital, they indicated:

1) We were attacking little kids.
2) We were attacking the Victory Church because we were devils, trying to comit hate crimes.
3) That "I" started the fight by punching the guy in the suit
4) That no one else was involved, except for the guy in the suit and the pastor.

An officer lead me away from the ER room and read me my miranda rights. Asked me some questions again, and in which I retold my part of the story. The SGT and officers believed my case, and gave me a break. See, I am in the process of becoming a police officer. I would NEVER jepordize my future career by starting a fight. That is NOT my character.

In the end, I was not charged with anything. My father was charged with assult, and disorderly conduct.

I understand it was wrong for us to be there in the first place, and I told my father that as well in reflection. Yet, my father was trying to let the pastor know about the people he hires, and what-not. In his mind, he didn't think he did anything wrong trying to let him know this, let alone to deserve getting beat up by 5 people.

The whole deal is messed up, and at least my father can chuckle about getting beat up by a pastor. In reflecting back, I am upset with myself. I only used the level of force needed to get to my father and stop it. I believe I did the right actions, but if I were not in the process of becoming a police officer, I would have done much more damage to these people. I had numerious opportunies to break bones, jaws, necks, etc. Rather, I just tried to momentarily stop the attackers to free my father.

I feel odd, for I am very upset inside, and wished I would have done to the fullest extent that Krav Maga and BJJ has tought me. Yet, I was being rational in the situation and thinking about priorities of threat force. Completely ****ed up. How can I sit and rationalize during combat? I think this will ultimately make me a good candidate for a police officer, it is upsetting that I could be that "bad-***" for my father and really put down all those people who touched him.

Anyhow, I guess I do nothing now? I am curious if anyone is affiliated with this/these churches, and have any advice of any sort. I am feeling vendictive, and need to expose this place to the proper religous authorities.