Second Baptist Church, the oldest Black church in South Los Angeles, was the scene Sunday of a standoff between church pastor, the Rev. Williams Epps, and members of the congregation concerned about church funds and other issues. (Photo by Gary McCarthy)
The Rev. William Epps, senior pastor of Second Baptist Church, called the police on 66 members of his church when they gathered in the sanctuary Sunday for a meeting to discuss serious and worsening financial and administrative problems plaguing the 125-year-old landmark house of worship.
Not only did he summon three White uniformed, armed and nightstick-toting LAPD officers into the church, Epps padlocked the church doors, effectively locking his members inside, thus creating a potentially violent situation from which his members — some elderly and some disabled — could not easily escape.
Why? Because in response to a petition from the required minimum of 50 church members, LaVon Gilmore, president of the Board of Trustees and president of the Second Baptist Church Corporation, convened a church members’ meeting at the close of Sunday’s 11 a.m. service and Epps did not want the members to meet.
At first, Epps engaged an off-duty LAPD officer to make the members leave the church. The officer stood in the pulpit and ordered the members out, stating: “This church belongs to Pastor Epps and he does not want you in here holding any meeting.” The members argued and shouted with the off-duty officer and made it clear that they had no intentions of leaving. The officer said: “I can make a call and have 50 LAPD officers down here to make you leave.” The members yelled: ”Do it!,” as they hunkered down in the pews.
The off-duty cop exited the sanctuary and went into one of the back rooms where other church members watched and listened as Epps personally called the LAPD and demanded that they send officers to his church “to break up an unlawful assembly of people in my church who are trespassing.” Witnesses said that, based on what was heard of Epps’ side of the conversation, the LAPD official to whom he was speaking must have been resisting the demand for cops in the church, as Epps was heard saying: “I own this church and I don’t want these people in it.”
Three White uniformed LAPD officers did come into the church and confronted the members, but after about a half-hour, they left, having concluded that whatever was going on in the church was a civil matter and of no concern to the LAPD.
An LAPD investigation of the incident ensued Sunday afternoon after it was reported to Chief Charlie Beck. Asst. Chief Earl Paysinger reported Monday that the off-duty officer who kept ordering the members out of the church is, himself, a member of Second Baptist and his actions do give the department pause.
“The department is conducting an inquiry into the appropriateness of this officer’s actions,” Paysinger said. “He does have a right to an off-duty life, but the rights of the people are not to be abridged while he is exercising his.
“We are concerned that the officer took the side of the pastor and we are still trying to determine exactly what was said to the dispatcher that would make three officers intervene in a civil matter inside a church,” the assistant chief added. “Chief Beck is concerned about having all his officers committed to working well with members of the various religious congregations throughout the city.”
When all the tension and histrionics ended, the 66 members turned their attention to the business at hand — the business Epps did not want them dealing with, to wit:
• Epps’ removal of the previous chairman of the trustees and Epps’ designation of an attorney named Benjamin Robinson as the new chairman.
• Epps’ letter to the bank designating Robinson as the new signer of all Second Baptist-issued checks.
• The church’s accounting firm reports that thousands and thousands of Second Baptist’s money is missing and never arrived into designated accounts.
• And the 2010 budget allocations for the church’s operations are almost gone and this is only July.
The members have a problem with Robinson, Epps’ hand-picked new man in charge of the church’s finances. According a State Bar Court of California document dated Nov. 19, 2009, Robinson, an attorney, was found culpable by that court of committing acts of moral turpitude, of violating rules of professional conduct and of numerous counts of failing to maintain client funds in trust accounts.
Epps and Second Baptist Church are specifically named in three lawsuits relating to the disappearance of thousands and thousands of dollars from the Second Baptist Church Credit Union when it was declared insolvent last year. The church retained the law firm of Stone and Stone to represent it in the matter.
On April 29, Robinson went to that law firm and took all the paperwork relating to those suits and he has kept them — all the documents, cancelled checks, statements, deposits relating to the Canaan Housing Corp., the credit union and the minutes of the Second Baptist Church Board of Trustees. Stone and Stone have been left with nothing with which to fight the lawsuits.
The members were enraged and horrified by these discoveries and they voted Sunday to remove Robinson as chairman of the trustee board and deny him the privilege of serving as any kind of officer on that body. The members also voted to instruct the church’s accountants to thoroughly audit the books and find out where all that missing money went. Most of the members seemed ready to vote on removing Epps, but Gilmore didn’t feel they were ready for that — yet, as there is still a lot of missing information and missing money.
This was the business Epps was so bent on stopping his members from meeting about, that he called the cops to rough them up.
Editor’s note: After deadline, the Rev. Wliliam Epps returned Betty Pleasant’s phone call and the following interview took place:
Question: Rev. Epps, why did you call the police on your members?
Answer: “I wanted to ensure order among the members. I wanted them to be safe. There was a lot of yelling and shouting going on in the church and I wanted there to be peace.”
Q: Why did you padlock the main church doors, leaving the 66 locked-in members only one small exit, which was located in the basement, way in the back of the church and far removed from the sanctuary where they were?
A: “We always lock the doors when the services are over. The Sunday morning service had ended, so we locked the doors.”
Q: Why did you not want your members to meet?
A: “Because it was not a legal meeting. Only I, as pastor, can call a meeting of the members and I did not call for a meeting. If they wanted to hold a meeting, they needed to request one of me, fill out the proper papers detailing what it would be about, how many are expected to attend and how long it is expected to last. They did not do that.”
RSS Feeds 
You have indicated this comment should be removed.
The comment has been submitted for review. Thank you .