APOPKA, Fla. — Video obtained by Channel 9 News shows the moment a preacher in Apopka was told someone had just threatened to blow up the church.
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It happened as the preacher was addressing the congregation at St. Paul AME Church, right in the middle of service Sunday morning.
They were celebrating the church’s 136th anniversary.
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St. Paul’s pastor says when officers first rushed through the church’s doors, all he could think about was getting his congregation out safely. Just a day earlier, its sister school- Edward Waters University in Jacksonville- was initially the target of a racially-motivated shooting.
“I’m sitting in the pulpit and I started noticing that there were uniforms coming into the back, and then an officer came down the aisle,” St. Paul AME Pastor Gerard Moss recalled. “Someone had called the suicide hotline and said that they had placed the bomb, I believe on the roof of the church, and they were inside the restrooms of the church.”
That was nearly an hour into the 8 a.m. service. Pastor Moss says the threat felt very real to him because of other recent acts of violence targeting historically black institutions.
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“A few years ago, one of our churches in Charleston South Carolina, Mother Emanuel- actually I’m from Charleston, SC coincidentally, and the pastor that got killed, I actually grew up with him.”
And more recently, the day before the threat was received, a shooter tried to gain access to the AME-founded Edward Waters University in Jacksonville.
The gunman was stopped by security at the school but went on to kill three black people at a nearby Dollar General store.
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“You have that happen the day before and then you start wondering, well are our churches and our denomination therefore being targeted,” Pastor Moss wondered. “Ultimately, we’re in God’s hands.”
Moss says there will be increased security at the church going forward and service will continue on Sunday.
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