A man has been arrested on multiple criminal charges after attacking an elderly usher in the parking lot of Cornerstone Church in Madison, a suburban neighborhood of northeast Nashville.
Deangelo Iman Lavender, 24, attacked a 72-year-old usher in the parking lot of Cornerstone Church on Old Hickory Boulevard early Sunday morning, according to the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD).
The victim, according to MNPD, had just parked his car and was headed toward the church building when he said a stranger (Lavender) ran up to him, said nothing, and hit him in the head with a pistol.
During a tussle with Lavender, the victim got ahold of the gun and tossed it into his vehicle in order to remove it from the ongoing altercation, authorities say.
In the parking lot, Lavender then approached another male church member who was talking to 911 on his cell phone.
After the individual refused to let Lavender use his phone, the suspect grabbed the phone out of the man’s hand and tried to run, but “not before the phone’s owner and a third church member, a 64-year-old man, physically restrained him and put him down on the grass until police arrived,” MNPD added.
Lavender drove to the church in a 2007 model Ford, which was stolen early Sunday from a Lickton Pike driveway, MNPD notes. He is also currently on probation for a 2020 aggravated assault conviction.
Records from the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office show that Lavender is being held without bond on seven active charges, including probation violation, aggravated assault for hitting the usher in the head, unlawful gun possession by a convicted felon, auto theft, property theft, vandalism, and marijuana possession.
Madison, which falls in Metro Nashville’s 9th Council District, experienced a total of 327 violent offenses during 2021, according to most recent data by MNPD. From 2020-2021, there was a 4.07 percent increase of violent crimes reported across Nashville.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Deangelo Lavender” by Nashville.gov. Background Photo “Courtroom” by Carol M. Highsmith.
The local DA should be removed.
Wow, another upstanding ferrel democrat.
Criminal justice reform at its finest.
The poster child for all that is wrong with liberalism. A criminal who cannot legally possess a firearm has a firearm. I guess he forgot. CRIMINALS DISREGARD THE LAW, THAT’S WHY THEY ARE CRIMINALS! So the liberal answer is more laws and just let criminals out of jail and back on the streets where they commit MORE CRIME.
YOU PEOPLE ARE SO UNBELIEVABLY STUPID!