A Durham, North Carolina, police officer has been fired while facing a charge over a crash in which a longtime pastor died within two hours after preaching at a revival.
The Durham Police Department terminated Joseph King, 52, on Wednesday, ABC 11 reported.
King had been charged with misdemeanor death by motor vehicle on Oct. 19. He was a corporal in the department’s Uniform Patrol Bureau and had served on the force since July 2010.
Investigators said King was at the wheel of a Honda car on Oct. 18 when he went through a red light where N.C. Highway 210 meets Old Stage Road and hit a church van. The collision killed Apostle Justin Heath, who was 67 and had been a pastor for many years.
Harnett County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived to find the van flipped over beside the road, with several people trapped inside. A supervisor with Harnett County’s emergency medical services confirmed Heath’s death.
In a statement after the crash, Durham Police Chief Stephanie Mardis offered condolences to Heath’s family and friends and to the people hurt. She said King worked in the department’s Uniform Patrol Bureau and had been on the force since July 2010.
Mardis said her department was carrying out its own internal review while the North Carolina State Highway Patrol led the investigation. She said the department holds its officers to “the highest standards of conduct.”
Heath was driving the van when it was hit, and seven other people were hurt, among them Lynn, who had been married to him for 47 years. Officials said six people needed hospital treatment.
Heath led Fore Christ Church and Cutting Edge Revelational Ministries, both in the North Carolina town of Mount Olive.
Earlier that day, Heath had preached at a revival about Lazarus, whom the Bible says Jesus brought back to life. He urged believers to cast off their grave clothes, as Lazarus did, and to accept the healing promised in scripture.
Heath told the congregation he had questions for biblical figures once he reached heaven. Of Lazarus, he said, “I want to ask how it feels to go to paradise and get called out.”
He said he would also ask Elijah how it felt to rise in a chariot, and Moses how he walked on dry land without getting mud on his toes. Heath said he wanted to know how each of those moments had felt.
He told listeners they needed a vision, should renew their minds and should not conform to the world.
An obituary said Heath worked as a deputy for the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office from 1984 until 1996, before he became a pastor.
After news of his death spread, people who knew him posted tributes online.
Michael Bacon, a prophetic minister and revivalist from New York, wrote on Facebook that Heath was his spiritual father. Bacon thanked him for the man he had been and called him an example of the kind of father everyone should try to be.
Bacon wrote that Heath preached his final sermon during the revival’s second night, and that no one there could have guessed how soon his words about Lazarus would take on new meaning. He added that Heath was “probably up there working for Jesus even now.”
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