Black Man Kills Pastor, His Child In Church Inb Selma, AL [Picture]

James Junior Minter, 26, has been arrested after he opened fire during services at the Oasis Tabernacle Church in East Selma, AL, shooting his girlfriend, their baby and a clergyman according to Dallas County District Attorney Michael Jackson.

The shooting reportedly stemmed from domestic violence between the couple.

According to witnesses Minter entered the church and sat in the front row between his girlfriend and their child when he pulled out a handgun and began shooting.  His girlfriend, 24, fell to the ground and Minter opened fire on her, striking his girlfriend in the jaw and shoulder.  Minter also ended up shooting his own child in the hand during the melee.

The police state the church’s pastor, 61, grabbed Minter and was subsequently shot in the leg.  Members of the congregation grabbed Minter and was able to wrestle the gun away from him before he ran out of the church.

Minter fled the church on foot, leaving his car at the scene of the crime, and was captured by police less than a mile away from Oasis Tabernacle Church.

The pastor was reportedly taken to a local emergency room for treatment of his gunshot wound to the leg, while the woman and the child were taken to a hospital in Birmingham listed in stable condition.

Currently, Minter is being held without bond at the Dallas County jail.  The Selma Police Department also report that Minter could face other changes and offered an additional motive for the shooting as a disagreement over child visitation as well as ongoing domestic violence between the couple.

Minter is facing three counts of attempted murder for the shooting.

In Black communities the church has long been used as a place to come together, worship and discuss social issues making them targets for White supremacists and they have sought to terrorize and destroy these institutions.

In a report by the Huffington Post, they list 94 cases since the 1950s where Black churches were bombed, burned or vandalized, mostly in Alabama, but shootings not of a racial nature are still somewhat of a an enigma.

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