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Pastor Leon McCray has received an apology from his county sheriff after he was wrongly detained by authorities.
The minister had called law enforcement for help after being attacked by five white people, but the police locked him up.
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McCray said that the group attacked him both verbally and physically. However, when he called 9-1-1, authorities arrested him for having a gun.
“I was not given an opportunity to speak,” McCray said, “And I said, what about the trespassing and the assault?”
The pastor said that he was handcuffed in front of the mob who assaulted him, saying that he was mocked by them during the arrest.
Five people were later arrested for hate crimes.
Donny Salyers, Dennis Salyers, Farrah Salyers, Christopher Sharp, and Amanda Salyers are all facing charges for hate crimes and various degrees of assault. Both Donny and Dennis Salyers were charged with assault and battery, and Sharp and Amanda Salyers were charged with trespassing.
Sheriff Timothy Carter later apologized to the pastor in a statement on Facebook saying, “I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that the Sheriff’s Office appreciates and cares for the Black community,” he said that his office is calling for a review of his officers. Two officers were put on administrative leave.
According to a report from The Washington Post, Pastor McCray called authorities when he confronted a man and a woman illegally dumping a refrigerator on his property. He said that the couple surrounded him telling him, “my Black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff, they don’t give a darn about,” saying, “We could kill you.”
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The charges against the pastor for brandishing a firearm were later dropped. Still, he shared that he was “disturbed,” by being arrested in front of a menacing mob.
McCray is a retired real estate investor and a former Air Force sergeant who told his story from the pulpit of his church on Sunday morning. “ I just want things to change,” he said, “They must change, and I won’t stop until it changes.”
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