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IPFS News Link • Heroes

Moment heroic pastor tackles gunman to the ground after he stormed the altar...

• https://www.dailymail.co, By CHRIS MATTHEWS

A pastor and his parishioners tackled a gunman to the floor and disarmed while he disturbed them at prayer at a Nashville church on Sunday. 

Dezire Baganda, 26, had been sitting in Nashville Light Mission Pentecostal Church, Tennessee, for almost three hours before he walked to the altar and pulled a gun on churchgoers. 

Pastor Ezekiel Ndikumana pretended to leave the church but instead snuck up behind the gunman and wrestled him to the ground.

He and other members of the congregation pinned him down until police arrived. Now, Baganda is facing 15 felony counts of aggravated assault. 

It is unclear how long he has lived in the area. The pastor said he was not a regular member of the church, but had been to services in the past. 

His motive remains unknown.   

Ndikumana, who uses a translator as he is a Burundian refugee who doesn't speak English, said he was worried the gunman would try to kill his parishioners. 

'He wanted to kill that's what first came to my mind,' Ndikumana told News 2 as choir member Nzojibugami Noe translated for him.

'He was standing in front of almost everybody. No one was behind him yet, so he could have done anything.

'I would say that God used me because I felt like I was going to use the back door... trying to go behind him.

'And then I felt the feeling that I would go and grab him, and that's what happened.

'God wanted to show that he's a powerful God. One main thing I said, we had faith.'

The attack was caught on the church's security camera and shows the pastor pretending to leave the room, walking behind Baganda before rushing him from behind and tackling him to the ground.


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