A bishop wearing a lot of jewellery was robbed by three individuals while he was live-streaming his sermon, and the incident was captured on camera.
On Sunday, as Lamor Whitehead was addressing his congregation, the masked men stormed into the Brooklyn, New York location of Leaders of Tomorrow International Ministries.
Before the guys with firearms arrived, Mr. Whitehead addressed his followers while wearing a maroon suit, a long gold chain, and a sizable ring on each finger.
He asked: “How many of you have lost your faith because you witnessed somebody else die?”
When Mr. Whitehead notices the burglars, he is seen dropping to his knees and is subsequently overheard muttering, “All right, all right.”
Around 11.15am, according to the police, a robbery occurred in Canarsie, when jewellery valued at $400,000 was taken.
Later, Mr. Whitehead told his followers that his congregation, as well as his little daughter, are now “traumatised” by the occurrence.
The bishop made news in May when he successfully negotiated the surrender of the subway shooting suspect wanted for the murder of a Goldman Sachs worker.
The three masked gunmen seized the things from Mr. Whitehead, his wife, and probably other churchgoers, according to the police, who also informed the New York Post that they then ran east on Avenue D.
Later on Facebook, Mr. Whitehead expressed his fear for his congregation, whom he characterised as being black, as well as his small daughter, when the three males suddenly burst in.
To enter a church and terrorise innocent girls and children, he declared. Still sobbing are the kids. Still sobbing are the women.
My spouse is sobbing. You did this to the place of worship for your grandmother and the church.
On Instagram, he described what happened on Sunday, saying that the robbers pointed a gun at his back while stealing his episcopal cross and the jewellery he was wearing from above and beneath his shirt.
I instructed everyone to get down, said Bishop Whitehead. I wasn’t sure if they planned to rob the church or open fire on it.
They removed all of my jewellery as well as my wife’s jewellery.
The churchman further said that while pursuing the criminals, he witnessed them remove their masks and flee in a white Mercedes.
This is the most recent crime to rattle the city, as Mayor Eric Adams has so far failed to address the issue despite promising to do so when he entered office in January.
However, he just unveiled a plan to put 3,000 undocumented immigrants up in hotels all across the city.
He has requested taxpayer-funded federal assistance to pay for his scheme.
Back in May, the opulent bishop also made an appearance at the Fifth Precinct in lower Manhattan on behalf of Andrew Abdullah, who is accused of fatally shooting Daniel Enriquez on the platform of a Q train at Canal St Station on Sunday in an attack that appeared to be unprovoked. He was dressed in a $350,000 Rolls Royce and a Fendi blazer.
At a press conference, Mayor Eric Adams disclosed that after Abdullah showed up at a legal aid agency in Tribeca, he spoke with Mr. Whitehead and instructed him to bring Abdullah in.
A little over an hour later, Abdullah showed up at the station.
He was wearing a dirty white t-shirt and cargo pants when two police officers led him inside the police station.
Whitehead, a former prisoner who spent five years at Sing Sing for multiple counts of identity fraud and grand larceny before being released in 2013, is thought to have close ties with mayor Eric Adams dating back to his time as Brooklyn Borough President due to his “charity” work.
Since then, he has established the Brooklyn-based ministry, which has been actively raising money through independently developed youth mentoring programmes since it was first incorporated as a for-profit company in March 2014.