A Black pastor who called police for help during a reported attack was arrested instead. The sheriff has now apologized.

• A black pastor in Virginia called police to report that he was being attacked by five white people.
• When police arrived, though, they arrested him on a charge of brandishing a weapon.
• Two weeks later, the sheriff apologized to the pastor. The group he accused of attacking him has been charged with hate crimes.

A sheriff in Virginia has apologized to a Black pastor who called police for help earlier this month and ended up arrested instead.

On June 1, Pastor Leon McCray saw two people trying to dump a refrigerator on his property. When McCray told them to stop, one of the people proceeded to verbally attack him and the other one went to get three other people, he said during a recent church service.

When the group reappeared as five, they continued to attack him verbally and then got violent, the pastor said.

They were "threatening to kill me... telling me that my Black life didn't matter," he said during his service.

McCray, a veteran with no criminal record, then pulled his concealed firearm in an attempt to save his own life. When the group left, McCray called 911 to report the attack.

McCray said he wasn't allowed the opportunity to speak and was put under arrest for brandishing a gun.

"That's not my life. That's not what I was preaching for the last 10 years," he said of being arrested. "I think you should be able to do things on your own property that you're not going to be assaulted, threatened on your own property."

Sometime after the arrest, town officials invited McCray to a meeting informing him that the white men and woman who attacked him had been involved in similar incidents around the area over the last two years, both physically and verbally assaulting people of color, he said.

When McCray learned about the family's history, and that an officer on scene who arrested them knew of their prior history, he became emotional.

"I was furious," he said of the incident, which he referred to as a "lynching."

On Friday, Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter announced that the brandishing charge against McCray would be dropped. The group of five were arrested after the sheriff's office "obtained warrants for more severe charges regarding this investigation."

Donny Salyers, 43, Dennis Salyers, 26, Farrah Salyers, 42, Christopher Sharp, 57, and Amanda Salyers, 26, are all facing charges for hate crimes and various degrees of assault. Both Donny and Dennis Salyers are also charged with assault and battery. Sharp and Amanda Salyers are also charged with trespassing, NBC reported.

• Read more:
• He trained the San Jose police about racial bias. An officer shot him with a rubber bullet during a protest.
• Experts explain what abolishing the police could actually look like
• Minneapolis City Council majority pledges to dismantle the city's police department in the wake of George Floyd's death
• Los Angeles mayor calls for the LAPD's budget to be cut by as much as $150 million after it had been set to increase by $122 million