The Rev. William Epps, the heretofore well regarded pastor of the venerable Second Baptist Church, has completely lost his mind and his dementia put his members in a situation fraught with potential violence and injury Sunday and created for me the most exciting church experience I’ve ever had: Epps called the police on 66 of his members who were holding a business meeting in the sanctuary of the church — and the police came!! Lord, have mercy!

The details as to what the meeting was about and what business transpired can be found in the news pages of this Wave issue, but here in Soulvine I want to provide the color commentary as to what occurred before the meeting started. You needed to have been there to believe it, but I’ll do my best.

Pressed by a petition of more than the required 50 church members, LaVon Gilmore, chairman of the Board of Trustees and president of the church corporation, called a business meeting of the members to immediately follow the church’s 11 a.m. service. At the conclusion of the service, Pastor Epps, who was hired and can be fired by the membership, announced from the pulpit that no meeting of the members will be held. He did the benediction and bid the congregation adieu. He left the sanctuary, but 66 of his members (plus me, making 67 people) remained in place for the meeting and began settling down to take care of some really bad business that has been roiling the church for more than a year.

Epps didn’t want them to meet. So, Epps brought in the Black gestapo who tried to make them vacate the church. Some Black guy got up in the pulpit and told the members they had to leave because the pastor did not want them there. He maintained it is Epps’ church and Epps wanted the people out. This guy, who refused to give me his name, identified himself as an LAPD cop, and, as it turned out, he is a cop, is a member of Second Baptist and was off-duty.

He kept ordering the people out of the church, and they were boisterously steadfast in their refusal to leave. There was a lot of angry shouting going on between the cop and the people. The members challenged the cop at every turn, gave no quarter and resolved to remain in those pews for the rest of their lives, if they had to. Then the frazzled off-duty cop said: “I can make a call and have 50 LAPD officers come in here and make you leave!” The members shouted, “Do it!!” Things were pretty hot at this point and I was giddy with excitement, as visions of Pulitzer Prizes and lawsuits danced in my head.

Then, the off-duty cop stormed out and called for his “50 LAPD cops” to remove us, and three uniformed on-duty White officers swaggered into the sanctuary like they owned the place. They were two relatively decent, normal-sized cops and one little puny obnoxious one who tried to intimidate us. He stood before us scowling, with his hand on his nightstick and had the ignorant gall to pronounce: “We’re here to decide if this meeting is lawful, or not. That’s our job!” (Can you believe that?!)

I said to myself: “This little runt is going to create a riot in here. He’s going to hit somebody with that stick and these people are going to fight back and it’s going to be glorious! I’m going to win a Pulitzer for my spot news story about White LAPD cops beating up a bunch of Black people inside the oldest Black church in the city!” And since I was sitting in the front row right in front of the nasty little cop, I figured I’d receive one of the first blows and then I’d sue the city of Los Angeles and end up with a really nice settlement and then I can get the new roof I need for my house, all thanks to this dumb ass Napoleon and this crazy preacher. Ain’t life grand?!

To my great disappointment, cooler cop heads prevailed and the sergeant who was present deemed that whatever was going on in that church was a civil matter and did not concern the LAPD. He gathered his other two officers and left without a single blow being struck. I was so sad. As soon as I got home, I called Fred Booker, special assistant to Chief Charlie Beck, to report the mess to the chief. After a cursory investigation, Beck and them confirmed that everything I reported was true, then apologized for its having happened and promised to deal with it in-depth Monday morning. Asst. Chief Earl Paysinger called me Monday afternoon to relate the status of the LAPD’s investigation of their on-duty and off-duty cops (see news story). Paysinger said: “You were lucky that a sergeant was present and nothing stupid happened.” The way I see it, I am not rich because a sergeant was present and nothing stupid happened.

PRO BONO? — Councilman Bernard Parks has been sued for almost $150,000 allegedly owed to the popular Valley-based political consultant John Shallman for the work he did in leading Parks’ disastrous supervisorial campaign against Mark Ridley-Thomas. In the breach of contract lawsuit filed Friday, Shallman claims that not only did Parks fail to pay him the agreed upon sum for working his campaign, but has not reimbursed him for his own money which he spent that helped Parks survive the 2007 primary to face Ridley-Thomas in the runoff, where Ridley-Thomas beat him like he stole some money ... oops!

DATEBOOK — State Sen. Curren Price will hold an informational hearing of the Select Committee on Procurement to examine the certification process for small, minority, veteran and women-owned businesses Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the State Capitol. If you have time, you need to get somebody up there. Information: (916) 651-4026.

The Rancho Cienega Tennis Club, reportedly the largest Black tennis club in the city, will host the 12th annual Jackie Tatum Tennis Classic from Friday to Sunday. The USTA-sanctioned event will feature adult and junior tennis players and will take place at the Arthur Ashe Tennis Center, 5001 S. Rodeo Blvd.; Jim Gilliam Park, 4000 S. LaBrea; Edward Vincent Park, 700 Warren Lane in Inglewood, and the Challengers Boys and Girls Club, 5029 S. Vermont Ave. The event is open to the public. The late Jackie Tatum was well known in the community, as she was the first African-American general manager of the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation.

Councilman Herb Wesson’s “Movies in the Park” summer series will feature the 7 p.m. showing of “Gay Pur-ee,” on July 9 in Reynier Park, 2803 Reynier Ave. As always, it’s free!

NAEJA, the National Association for Equal Justice, will hold an emergency town hall meeting July 10 at 2 p.m. in the Elks Club at 11160 Washington Place in Culver City to discuss and develop strategies to deal with excessive police force, community policing, racial profiling, police hiring practices and the reduction of homicides in Culver City. Federal and county law enforcement officials have been invited to participate, as well as the elected leaders of the city of Culver City, members of the Culver City Police Department and Frances Prizzia, the young attorney who witnessed the Culver City Police killing of Lejoy Grissom.