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Florida pastor was shot dead after he refused to hand over his fake gold chain
to two armed men who tried to rob him as he left a local store on Thursday.
Police told
Local 10 News that Pastor Kenneth Johnson, 67, of Power of Faith Deliverance
Ministries, was ambushed by
at least two
men in what they Know was a robbery attempt.
Witnesses
say that the robbers had targeted a fake gold chain the pastor had around his
neck and they struggled
over it
before the senior citizen was shot dead.
Johnson’s
wife, Latoya, grieved over the loss of her husband after hearing the news,
telling News 10 that her world is now gone.
“He was my
world. He was my world,” she said. “He was a good pastor, a kind, good-hearted
man. Why would they do
that? Why
would they take his life? Just take the chain and go home.”
Mohammad Bashier,
the supermarket owner who witnessed the murder, recalled the pastor as “a very
nice man.”
“I heard the
shot. They went up behind him. And one grabbed him, and the other shot him,”
said Bashier.
Police
questioned two men in connection with the pastor’s death but no arrests have
been made.
Pastor
Johnson had served in Liberty City for more than a decade and friends in the
area said he was a man who would open his heart and his wallet to help the
community.
“He’d give
anybody his last,” Billy Denson, a Liberty City resident told News 10. “He
didn’t even have to know you and
he would
give you his last.”
Community
leaders now believe that the pastor’s death could spark an awakening in the
community because of how connected he was.
“The rules
of the street were broken because this guy lives and operates in this area,”
said pastor Vinson Spann, a
longtime
friend of Johnson. “He feeds them, he gives his clothes.”
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