A Virginia sheriff has apologized to a black pastor who was arrested when he called the police on a group of white people who threatened to kill him after attempting to dump a refrigerator on his property, according to CBS News.

• Pastor Leon K. McCray Sr. described the ordeal during a sermon, calling the incident the "most humiliating, dehumanizing, damning and violating event of my life."
• He detailed going to his apartment in Edinburg, Virginia, and finding a man and a woman attempting to dump a refrigerator in the dumpster. The pair grew upset when he asked them to leave and came back with three more people.
• McCray said the group was “attacking him physically, saying ‘they don't give a darn’ about ‘my black life and the Black Lives Matter stuff,’ and telling him they would ‘kill’ him.”
• The pastor said the group only pulled back once he pulled out his legal concealed weapon.
• McCray called 911, and the arriving deputies proceeded to take away his gun and handcuff him in front of the group, who continued to berate him with racial epithets.
• He noted that he is “a pastor, a decorated 24-year Air Force master sergeant veteran, no criminal record,” and that the arrest "would not be tolerated if I was white.”

The group of five have since been charged with a hate crime and are being held without bond.

• Shenandoah County Sheriff Timothy Carter sat down with McCray a couple days after the incident and told him that the group was being charged and that he was urging a prosecutor to drop the weapons charge against McCray.
• The sheriff said:

"As I told Mr. McCray, if I were faced with similar circumstances, I would have probably done the same thing. I want the people of Shenandoah County to know that I and the sheriff's office staff appreciate and care about the minority communities, and especially our black community.”

Read the full report.