Police name NC pastor accused of urinating on female plane passenger. ‘He peed on me!’
Detroit airport police have identified the North Carolina pastor accused of peeing on a passenger who let out “a blood curdling scream” as being from Raleigh.
Daniel Chalmers acknowledged having “a couple of drinks” before the Oct. 12 flight departed Las Vegas for Detroit, and that he was taking “prescribed medicine,” according to a police report released late Monday to The Charlotte Observer and other news outlets.
Police emailed the report in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the Observer and other outlets.
Chalmers and his wife, Shara Lea Chalmers, lead Love Wins Ministries in Raleigh. Chalmers also is on staff at Catch the Fire Raleigh-Durham church, according to his bio on lovewinsministries.com.
Chalmers did not reply to phone and email messages from the Observer on Tuesday.
Chalmers’ eyes were bloodshot and he smelled of alcohol after officers detained him after the flight, according to the police report. “Chalmers also stated he took an (word redacted) before he left from Vegas.”
According to the police report, the victim “woke up feeling something warm on her body and when she looked up to her right, she observed Mr. Chalmers standing next to her shaking his exposed penis. (She) stated that she then noticed that Mr. Chalmers urinated on her and she started screaming.”
A police officer who happened to be in the emergency row said he asked the victim what happened, and she replied: “He peed on me!,” according to the police report.
“I then asked Chalmers: “What did you do?” and he replied, “I peed on her, I thought I was going to the bathroom,” the officer said in the report.
The incident occurred at 2:44 a.m., and most passengers were asleep, police said.
The victim, a 28-year-old Detroit woman, told WJBK-TV, the Detroit FOX affiliate, that she was asleep beside her sister when she “felt something warm,” woke up, saw the man’s private area and screamed.
Chalmers later denied peeing on anyone, according to the police report. “Whatever it is she is accusing me of, I didn’t do it,” an officer said Chalmers told him. “When I advised him of what it was the victim was accusing him of, Chalmers replied “I’m a pastor, that is out of my character and I didn’t do it.”
As officers escorted Chalmers off the plane, they said he told the captain of the plane that he would sue Delta Airlines “for defamation of character for their treatment of him,” according to the police report.
Before police released the report, rumors abounded about which NC pastor had been accused in the case.
Evangelist Will Graham took to Twitter on Friday to bat down gossip that he was the pastor, the Observer previously reported.
Officers with the Wayne County Airport Authority in Detroit initially responded to the report of a disorderly passenger on the inbound flight, authority spokeswoman Erica Donerson previously told The Charlotte Observer.
Police referred the case to the FBI, she said. The FBI typically handles investigations into incidents that occur during flights in the U.S.
The man was issued a court appearance for misdemeanor assault and released, Mara Schneider, spokeswoman for the FBI office in Detroit, told the Observer last week.
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 10:54 AM with the headline "Police name NC pastor accused of urinating on female plane passenger. ‘He peed on me!’."