LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Las Vegas Metro police arrested an evangelical pastor for allegedly having guns and drugs in a hotel room in an incident that initially sparked a counter-terrorism response, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned.
David McGee, 61, faces drug and gun-related charges connected to his Aug. 20 arrest at the Strat Hotel Casino & Tower, records said. McGee was the senior pastor at the closed The Bridge Fellowship, outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Though its building shuttered in 2023, the evangelical ministry continues online and through radio programs.
On Aug. 20, drug and counter-terrorism detectives responded to the hotel after McGee reported a piece of property missing, documents said. McGee told police he was visiting Las Vegas from North Carolina and had arrived in a private jet to find his daughter.
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. Hotel employees had previously warned McGee about the policy after he allegedly brought a shotgun to his room days earlier.
The discovery of the firearms, including an AR-15 with a scope, prompted responding officers to suspect McGee was planning a 1 October-style shooting, documents said. Since the 2017 mass shooting, Metro police have investigated “suspicious situations where multiple firearms are located inside hotels on the Las Vegas Strip,” police said.
On the day of McGee’s arrest, social media posts incorrectly claimed police’s response to the hotel for a failed terror plot. Metro police sent out a news release saying the information was false.
Inside the hotel room, police said they found suspected fentanyl pills and powder, they said.
“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.”
In the days before his trip to Las Vegas, McGee posted on a public Facebook page that he was traveling to find his daughter who he believed was living in a flood control tunnel.
“Pls [sic] pray for me as I go get my daughter from the worst [and] scariest place for my daughter in America… the Las Vegas tunnels,” McGee posted. On Aug. 19, a day before his arrest, McGee posted a photo of himself in front of the Strat.
McGee has not posted since Aug. 20. Records said that he did not appear for his probable cause hearing in Las Vegas Justice Court on Aug. 21 due to medical records. A judge did not set bail in the case as prosecutors had not filed a criminal complaint. McGee was due to return to court on Dec. 19.
On Aug. 29, McGee’s wife posted on his behalf, writing he had been in touch with their daughter and that he was “asking for prayers for his health, wisdom, safety [and] discernment.”
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is 50-to-100 times more potent than morphine. Just a few grains can kill a person.
Metro police did not take a booking photo of McGee when they brought him to the Clark County Detention Center. The 8 News Now Investigators have repeatedly attempted to contact McGee and his wife for comment.
In 2015, a couple told 8 News Now’s Winston-Salem-area sister station that McGee banned them from the church in a Facebook post.
8 News Now Investigator David Charns can be reached at [email protected].
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