A Saint Lucian pastor who was shot multiple times in the US is on the road to recovery, a family member told the STAR on Friday.
The Rev. Dr. Augustus Sealy, who leads the First Church of the Nazarene on Capitol Avenue, was injured at about 6:30 a.m. on Sunday May 24 in a drive-by shooting, Connecticut police said. The incident occurred in Hartford, Connecticut where Sealy was hit with three rounds by someone or persons in a moving vehicle. Sealy, 54, was planting small flags in the church’s lawn at 932 Capitol Ave in honour of Memorial Day. The bullets were lodged in his leg and shoulder.
Curtis Sealy, who is the brother of the pastor, told the STAR on Friday that he has since been transferred from the hospital where he was listed in critical condition to another facility for therapy. “I have spoken to him but there was not much he could say since he was heavily medicated and somewhat drowsy,” Curtis Sealy said. He went on to say that the family was in constant contact through his wife. “He also has a brother and sister in another state in the US and they are making plans to go over to be with him,” he informed the STAR. According to the pastor’s wife, her husband’s femur was shattered in the shooting.
Asked whether they had received any information as to the motive of the shooting, Sealy said “no.” He confirmed, however, that the police in Connecticut were following a lead after a witness had identified a black car travelling in the vicinity where the victim was shot and had heard five gunshots.
This is the fifth church that the Rev. Augustus Sealy has served in the United States after his first church in Saint Lucia, where he was born and raised. He had visited Saint Lucia as recently as March following the drowning of his 16-year-old nephew, Miguel Sealy of Massacre on February 23.