Residents to unite to block Westboro Baptist Church from picketing victims' funerals

Lafayette residents have started a Facebook group to create a human wall around the funeral processions of two killed in a shooting at the Grand Theatre to keep the Westboro Baptist Church picketers away from the grieving families.

"It’s time to come together as a community," Lafayette resident Brandon Verret said. "There is no way we, as the Acadiana community, can allow Westboro to be anywhere near the funerals for victims of this tragedy. Our community does not deserve that, and more importantly the families do not deserve that."

More than 4,700 people had RSVP'd to the event as of 3 p.m. Friday.

The Westboro Baptist Church sent out a tweet earlier today implying that they are planning to picket the funerals of Mayci Breaux and Jillian Johnson, the two women killed Thursday night in the shooting at the Grand Theatre 16 on Johnston Street.

The suspected shooter, John Russell Houser, 59, of Phenix City, Alabama, expressed support for Westboro Baptist in online posts he made. One such post read "The Westboro Baptist Church may be the last real church in America [whose] members [are] not brainwashed."

The church refused to claim Houser, saying he was "not part of Westboro Baptist Church."