Las Vegas cops arrest pastor who brought weapons and drugs to his hotel room
Las Vegas cops arrest pastor who brought weapons and drugs to his hotel room
Pastor David McGee is not a drag queen
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On August 20, David McGee, a 61-year-old pastor, was arrested in Las Vegas after law enforcement officials found an AR-15 and other weapons in his hotel room alongside fentanyl pills and powder that he claimed he wanted to give to his daughter.
The more you learn about the details of this arrest, the more bizarre the story gets.
For example, McGee arrived in Vegas on a private jet (as one does). He was looking for his missing daughter, whom he claimed lived in the “tunnels” underneath the city. He called Vegas the "most dangerous place on earth,” even as he brought drugs and weapons into the city.
McGee had already been a subject of concern for employees of Strat Hotel Casino & Tower after they caught him with a shotgun in his room days earlier. Given that the deadliest mass shooting in American history took place from a Vegas hotel room in 2017, staff and police are on high alert to prevent copycat incidents whenever they learn that someone has weapons—plural—in their room, and they learned McGee had multiple weapons after he himself called police to report missing property.
When officers asked McGee if he had any weapons in his room, he reportedly replied, “Yes, I have a gun in my guitar case,” documents said.
They found the drugs quickly after that.
“McGee advised [the detective] that he brought the fentanyl from North Carolina on his private jet to Las Vegas and paid approximately $1,000,” documents said. “McGee stated that he was a user of fentanyl and intended to distribute the fentanyl to his daughter when he locates her.”
Nothing screams Good Christian Father™ like a drug-addicted pastor hoping to give fentanyl to his daughter once he’s reunited with her… What was he planning to do? Leave a path of fentanyl grains from her location to his hotel room hoping to lure her back?!
For medical reasons, McGee didn’t appear at a court hearing on August 21 and his next court date is December 19.
It’s all an incredible turn of events for a guy who began The Bridge, his non-denominational megachurch, in North Carolina in 2010. Even though the church closed its doors in 2023, McGee’s Cross the Bridge Ministries kept going. While his website boasts that his “international speaking engagements include Rome, Greece, Mexico, Canada, Germany, France, Israel, Italy, Norwich England, and Paris,” and that his ministry’s “teachings are broadcast around the world on the Internet in an ever-increasing market,” there’s no evidence I can find that he was having much success with that—much less earning “private jet” money. His YouTube channel has a few hundred subscribers and his Facebook page isn’t that popular. McGee insists he has a Board of Directors and financial team, but there’s no public accounting of what he took in or spent.
His Facebook page was actually a fairly standard collection of Bible verses, right-wing conspiracy theories, and MAGA posts until just days prior to his Vegas trip, when he announced he was heading to Vegas for two days to “rescue” his daughter. “If I cannot find her by this afternoon, we are going down to the tunnels,” he wrote on the 18th. At no point did his followers urge him to get help or ask him why he’s acting like this. This was normal behavior for him, I suppose. They just kept encouraging him while saying they would pray for everything to get better.
On the 19th, McGee posted a shot from the Strip:
In subsequent posts, he made it sound like Vegas was the most dangerous place in the country, with references to it being a “third world country,” warning people, “These streets are evil & mean folks.”
Then came his arrest.
The only post since then came from McGee’s wife on the 29th, saying he’s still in Vegas, in touch with his daughter, and in need of prayer. There’s no explanation for why he had a semi-automatic weapon or drugs. (No denial either.)
If McGee had a God complex, though, thinking only he could solve the world’s problems, it’s nothing new. In 2015, he kicked a handful of members out of his church without explanation, announcing the move in a Facebook post that named names but ignored relevant details about the motive for his decision.
“I will block them because Jesus and the Word tell me to, and I don't want to hear the gossip and lies anymore,” he explained without telling anybody what they said. One of the couples later told a local news outlet that the post “was the first time they were asked to leave the church and were never spoken to directly about no longer being members there.” One of the ejected individuals admitted, however, that she and her husband had stopped paying tithes to the church, choosing instead to help other ministries and non-profit groups.
Which is to say: I think some people will want to write McGee off as someone who was suffering from mental illness, as a way to discount what happened over the past few weeks. But there’s no reason to think he somehow descended into this behavior recently. He’s been like this for several years now, constantly encouraged by the people in his circles.
All the while, he was telling everyone trans people, gay people, and atheists were problems.
About all I can do with this one is shake my head and ask (rhetorically): "How fucked up is THIS?" For the umpti-umpth time, we have a preacher who thinks he can do anything without consequences. This time, though, law enforcement is involved, and I can only hope that the fact of his being a so-called "Man Of God™" has ZERO impact on how he is treated by the system.
"All the while, he was telling everyone trans people, gay people, and atheists were problems.'
Money, drugs, power. To make the hypocrisy complete, IMAX level projection. The only surprising thing here is that there were no reported sex offenses. We're the problem? Sure, Jan.