In Brooklyn, New York, armed robbers entered Canarsie’s Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries church, robbing Bishop Lamor Whitehead and his wife during a livestream sermon.
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On Sunday, the vigilantes disrupted a live sermon and ran off with around $400,000 worth of jewelry.
The NYPD police said the armed suspects “displayed firearms and demanded property” from the 44-year-old bishop and his wife.
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“We were in church during morning service. And as I was preaching, I seen three to four armed men come in, and I just told my church — because see, when you’re a shepherd, right, you have to lead your sheep,” Whitehead said in a video posted to Instagram following the robbery.
“You have to lead your sheep and you have to protect your sheep. And when I seen the armed men come in, you know, it was specifically for me. It was specifically for me, and of course my wife … I told everybody get down. Everybody just get down. I didn’t know if they wanted to shoot the church up or if they were just coming for a robbery,” he added.
In the end, he said he was thankful for being unharmed but was upset over his stolen wedding band.
“They took all of my wife’s jewelry and took all of my jewelry,” Whitehead said.
Whitehead is confident that the cameras will be able to locate the robbers and return their jewelry.
“They were Black men. They had masks, but I can see they face. … They took all of my wife’s jewelry and took all of my jewelry, and then they left,” Whitehead said. “However, these young men didn’t know that cameras were on, and we know what car you was driving […] And we also know that you switched your clothes in the car, because I ran after them.”
Police said the attackers fled the service on foot and entered a white Mercedes-Benz. They were last seen traveling eastbound on Avenue D in Brooklyn, police shared.
The livestream robbery has been taken down online.
