The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

A LOCAL pastor is warning residents to be on guard this holiday season after thieves broke into his car and vandalised it while he was at church on Monday night.

Jeremy Penn, associate pastor at Five Porches of Deliverance Apostolic Centre, said he was having a meeting with church leaders when the theft happened.

He said thieves stole his knapsack with his passport and other belongings inside.

Police released surveillance footage of the incident late on Thursday night for media to circulate.

“That’s not the first time that kind of thing happened at our church or happened to me so it’s just disappointing that someone would vandalise your vehicle and then the added expenses of having to replace those things,” he told The Tribune yesterday.

Nonetheless, he said robbery incidents in the area have decreased tremendously when compared to the past.

 He attributed the decline to the hard work of police.

 “(Police) have beefed up patrols in the areas where persons are attending worship services on a Sunday morning,” he added. “They have been doing a real good job with patrolling so the instances of persons vandalising people’s vehicles while they’re in service, that has gone down tremendously.”

 He said while the church has security, religious leaders plan to remind its members to be on guard.

 “We have not had any instances of the church being broken into and the equipment being lost in quite some time. I think we may have experienced that in our early years before the building was secured, but nothing that I can recall from I was there,” he said.

“But I’m sure moving forward by sometime before the next service, we will have something to say to our parishioners in reference to this event and the upcoming Christmas season because it’s not just limited to churches. Everyone is going to be moving around doing Christmas shopping etcetera and you want to make your vehicle and yourself less of a target.”