On the afternoon of Wed., July 31, TPD took a battering ram to the front door of Bishop Chuck Leigh's Apostolic Catholic Church of Christ the Servant in Sulphur Springs. The dramatic door-smashing was captured by ABC Action News. The door was unlocked. TPD keeps sending girls wearing wires to him to get him to sign off on community service hours in exchange for sex. One of the arresting officers told him the orders for his arrest came straight from Mayor Buckhorn’s office. The mayor’s office denies the claim. Leigh had followed one of the girls from a distance and saw her walk toward two Tampa police cars and a waiting ABC Action News van. She leaned into the open police window and spoke to the police.
TPD spokesperson Laura McElroy condemns the notion that the city is out to get Bishop Leigh. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. McElroy initially told CL that the television crew “just happened to be there” during the raid of Leigh’s church. After being caught in a lie by CL she called back to amend her comment. “The news media was invited along for the raid,” she explained,
“but we did not tip them off.” What is the difference between an invite and a tip?
“but we did not tip them off.” What is the difference between an invite and a tip?
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Also there is this, Reverend Russell Meyer, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches, suspects there is more going on than meets the eye with the made-for-media police raid. “There is a real attempt to silence Bishop Leigh,” he says. “The picture painted by the local media is not only a fabrication and an insult, it’s an attack on the Church and its relationship with the poor.” Meyer is one of several following the case who have floated the theory that activists like Bishop Leigh are standing in the way of the city’s gentrification plans for Sulphur Springs and have thus become targets. Citing Mayor Buckhorn’s Nehemiah Project to demolish houses considered havens for drug dealers and prostitutes and the city’s aggressive code enforcement and plans to “repopulate” the neighborhood, some see the work of Leigh’s Apostolic Catholic Church as antithetical to the administration’s vision.
Also there is this, Reverend Russell Meyer, executive director of the Florida Council of Churches, suspects there is more going on than meets the eye with the made-for-media police raid. “There is a real attempt to silence Bishop Leigh,” he says. “The picture painted by the local media is not only a fabrication and an insult, it’s an attack on the Church and its relationship with the poor.” Meyer is one of several following the case who have floated the theory that activists like Bishop Leigh are standing in the way of the city’s gentrification plans for Sulphur Springs and have thus become targets. Citing Mayor Buckhorn’s Nehemiah Project to demolish houses considered havens for drug dealers and prostitutes and the city’s aggressive code enforcement and plans to “repopulate” the neighborhood, some see the work of Leigh’s Apostolic Catholic Church as antithetical to the administration’s vision.
