Welcome to Arrest Stories. A Louisiana pastor was arrested after crossing a four-lane highway to confront a twenty-year-old neighbor in a violent altercation caught on video. Heres what may have happened.
On June twenty-third, twenty twenty-six, Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church in Central, Louisiana, a suburb of Baton Rouge, was arrested and charged with second-degree battery following a physical confrontation with a twenty-year-old man who lives across the street from his church on Hooper Road.
According to Spell, the incident began while he was changing batteries in church buses. Spell alleged the young man began walking up and down the road next to the church parking lot, shouting threats. At a news conference on June twenty-fourth, Spell described what he claims the man said.
"He said, Tony, I'm going to rape your wife, I'm going to rape all your grandchildren, and the next time you go out of town, I'm going to kill them. And what the expletive are you going to do about it?"
Video footage shows Spell crossing the busy four-lane road toward the young man. The neighbor appeared to attempt to throw the first punch before the two exchanged blows. Spell eventually took the man to the ground. The victim was transported to a hospital and received five stitches to his chin. His father also reported a possible broken orbital bone.
After bonding out of East Baton Rouge Parish Prison on a twenty-five thousand dollar bond, Spell addressed his congregation and cited Bible scripture from Mark sixteen, verse eighteen.
"In my name, they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover," Spell said, adding, "I fulfilled the scripture, I laid hands on the sick. I don't know how much recovery they're going to have, but I laid hands on the sick."
Spell and his attorney, Jeff Wittenbrink, accused the Central Police Department of failing to act on prior complaints. "There's certainly a failure of laws and enforcers to keep the peace," Wittenbrink said.
Central Police Chief Roger Corcoran pushed back firmly. "We have no record of the Spells calling here once a week as we are accused of; and I would challenge him to give me dates and times. We will go back and look," Corcoran said. He confirmed his department had five recorded incidents involving the Spells over four years, with only one complaint directed at the neighboring family. That complaint, filed in March twenty twenty-six by Shaye Spell, described being followed and subjected to obscene gestures. The responding officer observed the behavior but did not identify a criminal offense. "There's no evidence of any wrongdoing, so it's closed," Corcoran said.
Corcoran also noted that incidents of that nature are typically referred to the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office, which handled Spell's arrest. The victim's father denied that his son made the alleged threats.
Spell faces up to eight years in prison on the second-degree battery charge and is due back in court on September fifteenth.
All suspects presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Do not take this report as factual, always verify facts. Thanks for watching Arrest Stories.