The Northgate Free Methodist Church and the Batavia community came together on Wednesday evening at a prayer walk on Bank street road.
Last Thursday, a man from Tennessee, who was driving on the NYS thruway, decided to make a right turn into a field while driving his SUV and hunt down 4 people with his vehicle who were walking on the church walking path.
One of the victims says she had contact with the driver, Paul Hussey, 63, of Highway 13, S. Hurricane Mills, TN, who was arrested on four counts of attempted assault 1st with a dangerous instrument, four counts of reckless endangerment 1st, criminal possession of a controlled substance 3rd, DWI, driving while ability impaired by drugs and driving while ability impaired by drugs combination. Hussey was also found to allegedly be in possession of a quantity of methamphetamine.
Rosalina Vanegas says Hussey was threatening to kill the four church members because he said they were on his land.
“The car was on, he hid himself and when we continued walking he came up to me face to face and said “I’m going to kill you, you F’n bastards.” and he was claiming that this was his land,” says Vanegas.
The group then hid in the trees, and then started running towards church as they called 9-1-1 reporting the incident.
Pointing to another part of the field, “This is where he got us and went around,” says Vanegas.
“I felt the heat of the car on my leg, this is where the supernatural power of God came in, I can’t explain what happened from here to the church”
Vanegas, who is close to 70 years old, was using a new walking stick that day. She ran with that stick as fast as she could until she spotted a deputy coming towards her.
She says she takes the stick with her everywhere now, after the 3 minute incident where she almost lost her life.
Director of Operations at Northgate, Mark Logan, says that last nights prayer walk was held to rededicate the land for good and for the Lord’s purposes.
“A single negative event will not deter us from using this property for good,” says Logan.
The church has been working on creating the Prayer Walk path for about six months and every Wednesday they are planning to hold a walk from 6-7p.m.
“It was a very disturbing event and you don’t anticipate these things to happen at a church, but we know they do, you just don’t expect it to happen in you location. It was an oddity, this was out of the scope of our security procedure.”