BATON ROUGE, LA – Tony Spell, pastor of Life Tabernacle Church, has been released on bond after being arrested for second-degree battery on Tuesday (Jun. 23). The pastor has been accused of starting a fight with a 20-year-old man who allegedly threatened several church members, including Pastor Spell’s wife.
Video footage released by the clergyman’s family shows Pastor Spell crossing the road to meet a man who is holding a phone. The young adult appears to be recording and talking to the pastor. He then throws a punch that misses the clergyman. In response, Pastor Spell throws a punch that lands and continues to wrestle and hit the 20-year-old.
Several seconds pass before Spell gets off the man and heads towards the road to return to the church’s property. Spell briefly comes back to kick his alleged agitator in the head before completely removing himself from the altercation.
According to a post shared on Facebook by Apostolic Progressive,
“The incident is one in a long series of threats and overt actions by the neighbor happening almost every day for the past five years. The threats against the congregation appear to be motivated by the religious beliefs of the people of this Pentecostal congregation. Within the past two weeks, the neighbor has threatened to rape an eight year-old black girl. He repeatedly shouts the N word at Black members of the congregation. This morning, the neighbor shouted that he was going to rape Rev. Spell’s wife when he was out of town and rape his grandchildren.”
Pastor Spell had limited words about the incident, which is classified as an ongoing investigation, when he made bond.
“I have no comment,” Spell said following his release from jail. “I’ll be in court [on] September 15,” he continued. “The truth will come out in court.”
This is not the first time Pastor Tony Spell has been arrested in the past few years. The Life Tabernacle Church clergyman made headlines in 2020, after refusing to obey mandates about gatherings related to the COVID pandemic. Pastor Spell not only held in-person services during that time but also continued the church’s bus ministry, which offered transportation to those who would otherwise be unable to attend.
“I will not give up my right to have church,” Spell declared after being released from jail in 2020. “I will not give up my right to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he added.
“While I was in the prison, I preached to the inmates. When the guards used profanity, I said, ‘Every time you use profanity, I’m going to quote a scripture.’ It went quiet in that jail cell. And then I preached to people.”