Detroit Holy Roller Gets Rolled

So a Detroit pastor takes his 2012 Infiniti QX56 and gets robbed and car jacked.

When even a holy roller gets rolled at a Detroit gas station, you know its getting bad.

You know the City Clowncil will have to be seen to do something because an attack on such an esteemed personage in the city is going to make the news.

The latest something, since the police clearly can't protect people in Detroit: Propose an ordinance requiring gas stations to install cameras and have security guards. So the Council and also the pastor are busy blaming the gas stations.

Winans also said gas station owners should also be more responsible. "You have to take charge and ownership," Winans said. "You have become complicit with that type of behavior."

The incident has caused Detroit City Councilman Kwame Kenyatta to renew his effort to have gas stations and other 24-hour establishments hire security guards and institute 24-hour surveillance cameras. Former police officer and Council President Pro Tem Gary Brown has advocated that gas stations close from 2-6 a.m. in an effort to crack down on crime.

Never mind that hiring security guards will likely eat up any marginal profits the stations are making in Detroit, not to mention they're already paying quite high taxes for police presence.

Interestingly enough, Pastor Winians didn't castigate his attackers and instead did the typical leftists approach of blaming society at large for "failing our sons":

Winans said he's not bitter and hopes the incident is a catalyst to a "sustainable initiative" to help young people. He said he's already had Gov. Rick Snyder pledge his support. "In our success we seem to have lost our center," said Winans, at a press conference before his sermon. "We have failed our sons and have allowed them to have heroes that are no more than thieves and thugs."

As a cautionary lesson to take from this incident, when your instincts tell you that something is not right, you may want to listen to them rather than comfort yourself with a bromide that you "won't be afraid of us":

"When I opened the door, I said, 'Uh oh,'" Winans recounted Sunday in his first sermon since the gospel music star's carjacking made international news last week.

Inside, he saw about a dozen young men loitering in the store, but little else. Even the chips and doughnuts were behind the bulletproof glass. "Something said to me … I am not going to live in fear. I am not going to be afraid of us."

He told the clerk $40 on No. 3. "I saw they were interested," he said.

As Winans described to church members Sunday how he went outside and then was punched in the head, dragged from his car and kicked, prosecutors were in court charging three men with the carjacking.

Note that the Pastor had the situational awareness to see the problem develop but bravely carried on to show how unprejudiced he was to not be afraid of some youthful thugs that had his same skin color - noble but stupid.

While certainly not blaming the Pastor, when your instincts are telling you to get out of the situation, you should listen to them before it escalates, no matter how noble and unprejudiced your inner voice may be to try and overrule them.

Update: Adding to the situational awareness problem already evident in the case, it turns out that the pastor was driving on a suspended license that night.