UPDATE: Pastor Tony Spell has been arrested. See below.
Louisiana Pastor Tony Spell, who has been holding crowded services amid the coronavirus lockdown, says he won't surrender after a warrant was issued for his arrest. Police say Spell will be charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon after backing his bus up into a protester who was standing outside Spell's Life Tabernacle Church.
Said the protester to WAFB: “At first I thought he [Spell] was just turning around his bus and was going to pull away, but he just kept coming in reverse. I could see him [Spell] driving the bus. He was honking his horn loudly at me and making gestures suggesting he was yelling while he was driving. It didn't seem real until it was physically in my face with a bus.”
Spell told the network: “That man has been in front of my church driveway for three weeks now. He shoots people obscene finger gestures and shouts vulgarities. I was pulling in from my bus route, picking up black children who haven't eaten because of this sinister policy that has closed schools. I was going to approach this gentleman and ask him to leave.”
Police said they expected Spell to turn himself in on Tuesday morning, according to NBC News. But TMZ says that Spell told them “he will never surrender to authorities.”
UPDATE. Spell has turned himself in.
