Sandy MaloneBrooklyn, NY – A flashy pastor dubbed the “Bling Bling Bishop” by the media in May after he turned in the suspect in a fatal subway shooting was robbed at gunpoint during a livestream of a church service in Brooklyn on Sunday morning.
The incident occurred at about 9:30 a.m. on July 24 as Bishop Lamor Whitehead was giving the sermon at the Leaders of Tomorrow Church in the 900-block of Remsen Avenue in Canarsie, WCBS reported.
The service was being livestreamed and viewers could see Whitehead’s reaction when he saw the door in the back of the room kicked open.
The video showed Whitehead stepped away from the pulpit as three masked gunmen entered the church and began walking toward the front.
Whitehead followed instructions and got on the ground, the video showed.
“I see three to four men come in,” the bishop told WCBS. “As I got down, one went to my wife and took all her jewelry and had the gun in front of my 8-month-old baby’s face.”
“Took off my bishop’s ring, my wedding band, my bishop’s chain, and then I had chains underneath my robe and he started tapping my neck, so that means they knew. They watched and they knew that I have other jewelry,” he continued.
The bishop said that the approximately 100 parishioners in the room dropped to the floor terrified.
“My church is traumatized. The women and children are still crying. Babies are still crying,” Whitehead said.
He said he daughter hasn’t been talking since she was held at gunpoint.
The bishop said there were additional gunman at the door of the church with their firearms pointed at the deacons who were manning the entrance, WCBS reported.
The New York Police Department (NYPD) said the armed suspects stole more than $1 million in jewelry off the bishop and his wife.
The suspects fled the scene in a white Mercedes, according to NYPD.
Whitehead said he thought that he and his wife had been targeted because of the publicity that surrounded a good deed he did in May, when he tried to negotiate the surrender of 25-year-old Andrew Abdullah for the murder of 48-year-old Daniel Enriquez on a Manhattan-bound subway train, NBC News reported.
“I turned him in, but the media called me the ‘Bling Bling Bishop.’ They had my Rolls Royce car all over everywhere,” the bishop explained.
Abdullah was ultimately arrested by the police separately.
The bishop has defended the “flashy” style that was criticized in the media at that time, NBC News reported.
“It’s not about me being flashy,” Whitehead said. “It’s about me purchasing what I want to purchase. If I worked hard for it, I can purchase what I want to purchase.”
No arrests have been made in the jewelry heist but NYPD said the investigation is ongoing, WCBS reported.
Watch the robbery unfold in the video below. WARNING – Graphic Content:
Holly Matkin
