Minister shot to death near KY church

COVINGTON, KY - November 2, 2008 Court records in Hamilton County, Ohio, revealed a yearlong dispute between the accused gunman and the minister, the Rev. Donald Fairbanks Sr.

Fairbanks and Dowdell Cobb were shot just before 11 a.m. Saturday, police said. The gunman chased one of the men to a nearby park, where he shot the man a second time, said Lee Russo, the police chief in Covington, Ky.

It was unclear which of the men was shot in the park.

Frederick L. Davis, of Covington, quickly surrendered to police and was charged with murder, first degree assault, criminal mischief and violating an emergency protection order. He was being held without bail and is scheduled to appear in court on Monday. A Kenton County, Ky., jail representative said Davis had no attorney listed.

Fairbanks, pastor of Cincinnati's New St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church, died later Saturday at St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Covington, authorities said. Cobb, a deacon at the church, was treated at University Hospital in Cincinnati. A hospital spokesman declined to release information on Cobb's condition.

In June 2007, Fairbanks filed a complaint accusing Davis of making a threatening phone call to his wife, records showed. Davis, 40, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in October 2007, and a judge sentenced him to a year probation and ordered him to stay away from Fairbanks and New St. Paul Baptist Church.

Fairbanks and Cobb had hoped to attend the funeral of a 71-year-old woman who was related to a member of New St. Paul's congregation. Officials at Covington's Ninth Street Baptist Church went ahead with an abbreviated service for the woman after the shooting.

"To think that somebody would have total disregard for the family," the Rev. Richard Fowler, Ninth Street's pastor, said of the gunman. "They're already bereaved over the loss of a family member."

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