Little Rock, Arkansas



From Yahoo - News of December 10, 2003

Pastor Ends Rampage by Gunning Down Suspect



(Reuters) - A 64-year-old minister shot a man dead on church grounds after the assailant attacked him and his son-in-law with a poker amid a string of assaults in an apparent drug-induced frenzy, police said on Wednesday.



The attacks on the minister and the five other people began on Tuesday when Corey Adams, 30, was denied the use of a telephone in the office of a low-income housing project.



In quick succession, Adams is suspected of striking and robbing an acquaintance standing nearby. He then attacked the apartment manager, an exterminator and an insurance agent, Henry Vance, 54, who was critically injured and still hospitalized, police said.



The Rev. Arthur Ford, one of six people attacked, got a handgun from his living quarters at the inner-city church where he is pastor and fatally shot Adams, police said.



Adams entered Ford's residence at The House of Prayer of the Apostolic Faith, took a poker from the fireplace and began beating the minister, and then the clergyman's son-in-law. Ford escaped the melee long enough to find the handgun and fired several shots at Adams, who collapsed outside the church and later died in hospital.



A police spokesman said that it appeared to him that Ford's use of deadly force was justified, although a final decision would be made by the local prosecuting attorney.