Florida sheriff’s deputies have arrested a pastor for encouraging hundreds to attend his megachurch in Tampa Bay over the weekend, in open defiance of the state’s orders to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Dr. Rodney Howard-Browne, head pastor of the River at Tampa Bay Church, was arrested on a warrant for charges of unlawful assembly and violating an emergency public health order, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said at a news conference on Monday afternoon.
Howard-Browne presided over hundreds of people at his megachurch over the weekend, despite county “safe at home” orders to avoid such gatherings where people can more easily be infected by COVID-19, the sheriff said.