MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WKRN) — A Murfreesboro pastor and his family are at the center of a shocking machete assault in a grocery store parking lot.
Murfreesboro Police say it happened at the Kroger on S. Church Street. Sunday afternoon, Pastor Jerry Weeden, his wife and their two grandchildren went grocery shopping. As they pulled into a parking spot, there was a shopping cart blocking the way.
“The customer that was on the side of us left his buggy in our space,” said Rev. Jerry Weeden. “So I got out, put the buggy in front of the car.”
Rev. Weeden pastors Ebenezer Primitive Baptist Church in Murfreesboro. He says the suspect quickly became angry as the two had a verbal exchange.
“He got irate,” said Rev. Weeden. “One word led to another and then he proceeds to get out of his car with a machete.”
The interaction continued to get heated. At one point, the suspect pulled out a second, larger machete and even threatened to hit Weeden’s wife, Denise, with his car.
“He just kept going on and on,” Rev. Weeden explained. “He pulled out another machete longer than the one he had previously. From that incident, he proceeds to try to hit my wife, and I’m trying to block her and get her out the way.”
Denise also tried to intervene.
“I asked him why was he so angry,” she said. “Like, what possessed you to be so angry over you leaving your buggy in the parking lot, and we’re just trying to park and move the buggy.”
The Weedens had their two grandsons in the backseat at the time of the assault. They are nine and six years old.
“My oldest grandson, he made a comment,” said Denise. “He said ‘Grandaddy, I thought that man was actually going to kill you.'”
The boys were sitting in the backseat when the suspect, who has not been publicly named, used his machete to break their back window. Glass crashed over the boys’ heads.
“That’s who I’m worried about the most. How will this affect him long term? Short term is okay, but he will remember this the rest of his life,” said Rev. Weeden. “I let him know that not everyone is a bad individual. There are still good people out there.”
The Weeden family was able to snap a picture of the suspect’s license plate. He is now wanted for two counts each of aggravated assault and reckless endangerment.
