Pastor Kills Brick-Wielding Attacker During Church Services: Police

A Detroit pastor fired several rounds from his handgun and killed a man who allegedly came after him with a brick during Sunday church services and has been taken into custody.

Assistant Detroit Police Chief Steve Dolunt told The Detroit News the victim and the pastor knew one another, and the pastor “had issues with the man before.”

» Get Patch’s daily newsletter and real-time news alerts.

“He had been threatening him to do bodily harm. He walked into the service and went after the pastor with a brick,” Dolunt said. “The pastor pulled out his Glock and fired several shots. I think he hit him 4 or 5 times, and the man died.”

The shooting occurred about 1:45 p.m., 15 minutes after the 1:30 p.m. service got under way at the City of God storefront church on Grand River Avenue. The Daily Caller identified the pastor as Keon Allison.

Police are questioning the pastor to determine if the shooting was justified. Police said they’re not sure if the victim “had mental problems or what,” Dolunt said.

Police had received one previous report about a church intruder that involved threats, the Detroit Free Press said. It’s unclear if that report involved the victim in Sunday’s shooting.

The shooting occurred four months after a gunman opened fire at an African-American church Charleston, S.C., killing nine. Since then, several churches in the Detroit area have increased their security.

“The reality is, things can happen anywhere now,” Detroit City Councilman Andre Spivey, pastor of St. Paul A.M.E. Church on Detroit’s east side, told The Detroit News at a June vigil for the victims in the Charleston shooting. “(Church) is a haven of rest and safety ... when you cannot be safe in God’s place of worship, where can you be safe?”

The Rev. Larry L. Simmons, pastor of Baber memorial A.M.E. Church in northwest Detroit, said his church increased security after a shooting outside the Citadel of Praise Church in July. An off-duty police officer who was serving as a security guard at the church fatally shot a man who was wiedling a hatchet in that incident.

“That incident alerted us that our security was not right,” Simmons told The Detroit News. “But how do you make a place that’s open to the public completely secure? You can’t.”