Youth Minister Shot to Death
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PHILADELPHIA — An apparently stray bullet killed a youth minister as he sat in a church van with members of his congregation.
Nafes Johnson, 19, and four members of Greater St. Matthew’s Baptist Church were being driven home after a Friday night service, police said.
Johnson, sitting behind the driver, was struck in the head and died at a hospital early Saturday. No one else was injured, said Lt. Richard Ross.
The bullet appeared to have been fired from about a block away in a shooting over a drug deal, Police Commissioner John Timoney said.
No one had been arrested Saturday.
Johnson gave his first sermon last week.
He was shot just five blocks from a schoolyard where a 6-year-old girl was wounded by a stray bullet on April 4.
Johnson had planned to transfer to Philadelphia Bible College in the fall, his pastor said.
“A young man not on drugs or on the streets. A young man not involved in the criminal justice system. Yes, he beat the odds,” said the Rev. Steven Avinger. “And yet, in a very real way, he didn’t. Because he will go down as another young black male shot to death.”
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