Black Pastor Called Police to Report Being Attacked by White People but They Arrested Him Instead | 22 Words

A black pastor recently faced a terrible injustice when he called the police after being threatened by white people, and they arrested him instead.

Keep scrolling to learn more about this damning story and how racism remains to be such a huge problem...

The Black Lives Matter movement has taken over the world...

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 Since the death of George Floyd, protests for the movement have been happening across the globe in volumes we've never seen before.

This kind of police brutality has been happening for centuries now...

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 But George's death has sparked an outrage like never before.

Thousands upon thousands of people have been taking to the streets in protest...

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 And they are all marching for one thing: For the blatant racism and injustice in this country to be brought to an end.

Many protests turned violent...

But change needs to happen and, at the moment, this seems like the only way to make it happen.

Remarkably, however, they seem to be working.

Thanks to these riots, the Black Lives Matter movement is dominating global headlines, and it has completely taken over social media.

It has also taken over our streets...

For instance, a group of people painted large yellow letters saying "Black Lives Matter" down two blocks of 16th Street in D.C - a two-lane road that coincidentally leads to the White House.

Protests have been happening across the pond too...

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 Hundreds of thousands of people have been taking to the streets in the United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

We are witnessing history in the making...

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 And people are continuing to demand justice.

One of the most recent events is the tearing down of statues of slave traders and other controversial figures by protesters.

Just last week, across the pond in the UK, a video went viral of protesters tearing down a statue of 17th Century slave trader Edward Colston and tossing it into a nearby river.

Colston was a slave trader.

Colston was Conservative MP for Bristol following his tenure as deputy governor of the Royal African Company. He is thought to have trafficked as many as 84,000 African men, women, and children, with an estimated 19,000 dying on their journey to the Caribbean and America.

A statue of Christopher Columbus in Virginia was another of those torn down and defaced. 

The statue was ninety-three years old and had been standing there to commemorate the Italian explorer.

Many agreed with the protestors' actions...

And people have been speaking out against Columbus and what he stood for in history.

Even though more people have been educating themselves on the history of black people and the racism that they have faced for centuries...

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 It's going to take a lot more to change everyone's attitudes.

And that does not exclude the police force.

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 Police brutality against black people is one of the main reasons why these protests are happening and there's no denying that police officers here in America unnecessarily target people of color over white people.

And sadly, it was proven that many police officers haven't been taking the #BLM movement onboard.

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 It all happened in Virginia at the start of this month...

Leon McCray Sr. is a well-respected pastor in Virginia...

via: YouTube

 And last week, the sixty-one-year-old detailed a horrific incident that he endured on June the 1st, in a sermon at his church.

The pastor found himself in the wrong place...

via: YouTube

 McCray told his congregation that he was driving to a property he owned in Edinburg, Virginia when he saw 2 people who didn't live there dragging a refrigerator to a dumpster at his apartment building.

When he asked them to leave because they were trespassing, he said that they started threatening him and brought three other people who circled around him.

via: Facebook

 "They were telling me that my black life and black lives matter stuff — that they don't give a darn about that stuff in this county and they could care less and 'We will kill you,'" McCray said.

The pastor then pulled out his licensed concealed gun after feeling threatened by the group and called 911 for assistance.

via: Facebook

 He said that when authorities arrived on the scene they asked him to hand over his gun before talking to the group of five people who had allegedly threatened him. But McCray said that the deputies never let him give them his story. "They came back to me and said, 'We have to arrest you for brandishing a firearm,'" he explained.

"They put me in handcuffs."

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 He then said that when deputies placed him in the car, the 5 despicable people who'd been threatening him waved at the vehicle and kept yelling "racial epithets" at the car. Utterly disgusting.

This was deeply humiliating for the proud pastor, who had never been in trouble with the law in his life.

via: Facebook

 "How humiliating," he told NVDaily. "How dehumanizing … to look at this mob of individuals cheering on the sidelines waving as I was carted off to go to jail."

However, the pastor was soon released when the Sheriff got wind of what had happened.

via: Facebook

 In an interview with WUSA 9, Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter said that he was upset with his deputies over the arrest.

"Mr. McCray was defending himself."

via: Facebook

 In a post on the county sheriff's Facebook page, Carter wrote that he had met with McCray personally on June 3 and had apologized for his arrest. "If I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing," the sheriff wrote.

Thankfully, the 5 people who threatened McCray have now been charged with hate crimes.

via: Shenandoah County Sheriff's Office

 The office obtained warrants for felony abduction, assault by a mob, and assault – hate crime for the following people: Donny Salyers, Dennis Salyers, Farrah Salyers, Christopher Sharp, and Amanda Salyers.

The deputy who arrested McCray has also been placed upon unpaid leave whilst they are investigated...

But people have been left furious over the pastor's terrible treatment and the deputy's misjudgment.

McCray should not have experienced this...

And even though the police department is describing it as a "mistake", this wouldn't have happened if our country didn't hold such a disgusting attitude towards black people.

We're thankful that McCray has been able to speak out about his terrible experience...

And we can only hope that people will learn from his words and educate themselves on the terrible problem that our country has with racism.