OPINION | This article contains opinion. This site is licensed to publish this content.
A member of the Virginia law enforcement apologized to a black Christian pastor who was arrested after calling 911, and pulling his legal firearm against a group of white people who now face hate crime and assault charges, according to Fox News.
On June 1, Pastor Leon McCray Sr. was attacked by five people who threatened to kill him after he caught them trying to dump a refrigerator on his property.
McCray then pulled out his legal firearm to protect himself, but when the police arrived, he was arrested.
“Being threatened and fearing for my life, I took and felt compelled to pull my legal concealed weapon to save my life, and when I did that, finally these individuals backed up long enough for me to call 911,” McCray recounted, calling it a very “traumatic experience.”
“I felt, literally, like I had been lynched without being killed,” McCray said, calling it “indeed the most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life.”
“I’m a pastor, a decorated 24-year Air Force master sergeant veteran, no criminal record,” McCray said. He said the deputies rushed to judgment by “disarming a black male brandishing a gun against five white individuals.”
The arrest “would not be tolerated if I was white,” he said.
Sheriff Carter met with McCray two days after the incident.
“As I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing,” Carter said.
“I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that I and the sheriff’s office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our black community,” the sheriff said.
More from Fox News:
McCray, a retired Air Force veteran, described the events leading to his arrest in a June 7 sermon titled “For such a time as this” at Lighthouse Church & Marketplace Ministries International.
They threatened him and returned with three more people, attacking him physically, saying “they don’t give a darn” about “my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff,” and telling him they “would kill” him, McCray said.
— Advertisement — Upon arrival, deputies took McCray’s gun while talking to the five individuals, who continued to threaten and yell racial epithets at him. McCray said he was “handcuffed in front of the mob” and wasn’t given the chance to tell his side of the story.
Donny Richard Salyers, Dennis James Salyers, Farrah Lee Salyers, Christopher Kevin Sharp, and Amanda Dawn Salyers are now being held without bond.
The Sherriff said four of the five were already charged with assault or trespassing, but after hearing from the pastor, he initiated a review that led to additional charges against all five. Carter said he also urged a prosecutor to drop the weapons charge against McCray.
