CHANNELVIEW, Texas – A pastor is recovering after police say a man pistol-whipped him in the back of the head and then robbed him in the church parking lot Sunday morning.
Channelview tabernacle pastor Ted Broadway, who has been with the church for 58 years, was putting the trash out in the parking lot dumpster around 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning.
He had pulled his truck up to the dumpster next to the church, opened the passenger door and started removing trash.
That’s when he said a man in a small truck pulled up next to him.
“I said, ‘No this is not a public dump, if you notice down here there is a sign that says church property,'” Broadway, 85, said. “I bent over to get some more trash out of my back seat there, and when I did, he run my bill. I said uh-oh, and I said, 'What did you hit me for?’ He said, ‘I got a gun and I want your money.'”
The pastor said that after the man hit him on the head, the suspect held the gun on the side of his body and demanded the money.
“Now he could have very easily said, ‘Sir, I need your money,’ and I would have gave it to him, but no, he chose to whack me on the head, and I want you to know it was a good one,” said Broadway.
He said the suspect took his time to leave.
“But I didn’t get upset, I started waving to him bye-bye,” explained Broadway.
He called his family and his granddaughter arrived before police.
“We’re just so happy that he’s not hurt and that he’s still alive, because that man could have easily shot him and left us with no granddad anymore,” said Hope Cory. “I know it was God, there is no doubt in my mind that it had to be God protecting him.”
The pastor was taken to the emergency room, but was released later Sunday.
“I felt the back of my head and there was a big knot and it was bleeding, but I wasn’t shaken up,” said Broadway.
Even though the robber took the pastor’s money and wallet, he didn’t take his spirit.
“I don’t have no hard feelings, I just feel sorry for him,” said Broadway. “If you love God and live God, you got to love your enemies.”
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said it’s investigating what happened and is looking for a suspect.