Pastor Clemmie Livingston Jr., the pastor of Memphis, Tennessee’s Zionfield Baptist Church, is, thankfully, alive and healing after being shot in the mouth while trying to stop a carjacking outside his church three weeks ago. Memphis is a highly violent city in the western part of Tennessee.
As background, Pastor Livingston was shot outside his church when he heard a carjacking occurring and attempted to intervene. The shooting occurred on a Sunday, just before church was set to begin. Despite the devastating nature of his injury, the hospital managed to keep him alive, and now he is on the road to recovery.
In fact, according to the Christian Post, Pastor Livingston is slowly working toward recovery and now is starting to talk again, albeit slowly, and is managing to start eating solid foot again, a near-miraculous event given that he is elderly and was shot in the mouth. But, most of all, he is grateful to be alive despite his injury.
Speaking to Fox13 on Wednesday, March 13, about his injury and what happened, Pastor Livingston said, “I cannot explain how it happened. All I know is that I was struck.” He continued, explaining how he managed to hold onto his faith, saying, “While I was waiting for the paramedics, all I could see or kept asking myself was, ‘am I going to be dead in a few minutes,’ because I was losing blood at a record rate. But I held on to my belief.”
He also commented on the need to keep Memphis’ kids off the streets and out of the gangs, saying, “Give them something to do. Don’t steal my car, go buy yourself a car. So many of these households and homes don’t have a father or anything in the home. So, we have to look at all that.”
His wife, Gwendoline Livingston, spoke to Fox13 as well, saying, “I wanted to be as happy as we were, and so I can make the rice go just a little bit more down, and yesterday it was greens and dressing, and before that was cabbage. I asked him, ‘How was it?’ And he said, ‘It tastes like how it supposed to taste.'”
Watch Pastor Livingston here:
The Memphis Police Department added more details than the New Zionfield Baptist Church. Speaking to local news outlet Fox 13, the department said, “The victim was shot when he came out of the church as the suspects were stealing a 2019 silver Chevrolet Corvette. As the suspects fled the scene in the stolen vehicle, they fired shots, striking the victim.”
Continuing, the department described how an armed bystander intervened and fired on the suspected car thieves and attempted murderers. It said, “A second person who was outside of the church at the time the car was stolen returned fire after the suspects shot first. The victim was in stable condition at the last update. The vehicle has not been recovered at this time. This is an ongoing investigation.”
Further, Pastor Livingston’s 17-year-old grandson, Kavion Woodin, spoke to Fox 13 and described what the community should learn from this horrific tragedy. Woodin said, “My grandad got shot in the mouth. This should be one of the things that wakes up Memphis to show that nobody’s safe. A church is one of the safest places you should be at.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video