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A Tampa, Florida, news team was en route to a story when they stumbled across what appeared to be a better story — an armed robbery in progress.
Upon further investigation, it was indeed a breaking story: A man with a concealed carry permit was holding a burglar who had attempted to break into a church at bay until law enforcement could arrive.
Local NBC affiliate WFLA News Channel 8 reporter Lindsey Mastis and photographer Malik Parler came across a man pointing a pistol at another man who had his hands in the air outside the entrance to the First Baptist Church’s Culbreath Chapel.
The man with the weapon was later identified as Ed Clayton, a church maintenance worker who was boarding up the doors to the chapel because they’d been breached earlier.
He told the station that he decided to bring his weapon in the event he found someone inside the building.
When he arrived, someone had told him that a would-be burglar ran away from the scene after breaking the doors. He later returned while Clayton was boarding them up.
“I saw the guy walk up the sidewalk and he saw me and took off running. So I ran down the sidewalk and when I got to the end of the sidewalk I didn’t see anyone,” he recounted. “I look over in the bushes and he’s hiding.”
The evening’s events would mark the first time Clayton had ever drawn his pistol.
“As soon as I hit the sidewalk over there, I took my weapon out just in case. I didn’t know where he was,” he said.
Damage to the doors was estimated at $4,000, and the suspect was identified as John Novobylski, 23, of Illinois.
Watch the report via WFLA. Tweets and raw footage at the scene follows.
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Mastis tweeted:
We were driving to our story and then came across this. The guy with a gun is a maintenance worker at a church… pic.twitter.com/CynVBsyGCu
— Lindsey Mastis (@LindseyMastis) April 4, 2016
and the man with his hands up allegedly tried breaking in, twice, to the church. He was arrested. pic.twitter.com/7w54RwMfpG
— Lindsey Mastis (@LindseyMastis) April 4, 2016
Watch the raw footage via News Channel 8.
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