A Selma man was arrested Monday night for allegedly texting a pastor and threatening to kill him.

According to Detective Jeff Hardy with the Selma Police Department Narcotics Division, 22-year-old Rodriguez Smiley was arrested Monday night around 7:30 p.m. after admitting to investigators that he had plotted to kill a bishop at Tabernacle Church of Praise and others who were unidentified.

“He has been stalking the bishop since last year, and he was sending out texts on the phone threatening to kill him,” Hardy said.

Smiley was charged with making terrorist threats and stalking. He was booked into the Dallas County Jail with no bond.

Smile wasn’t a member of the church, according to Hardy, but he had been attending the church for quite some time.

Smiley told investigators that it was his mission to kill the bishop. During his interview with police, Smiley is quoted as saying on video,  “I was going to kill [the bishop] for God for being a false prophet, but it’s going to be hard though …. I’ll get back to him later. There are other people I need to deal with now. I’m just plotting, waiting on the right moment.”

Hardy said because of the recent shooting at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. that killed nine people, the department couldn’t take the threat lightly.

“This is out of the ordinary for us here in this city,” Hardy said. “We jumped on this as soon as we heard it because we don’t want that type of incident to happen here in Selma.”

Hardy said detectives picked Smiley up at his mother’s house after they heard about the threats to the bishop.

“We looked at the phone number with the texts, and we later found out whose phone it was,” Hardy said. “We called his mother, and his mother verified the phone number. She gave us permission to go to her house and pick him up for questioning. After picking him up for questioning, he stated that he was going to kill the bishop on video interview.”

Hardy said investigators found multiple text messages that were threatening the bishop, but he also allegedly planned to kill other people that he did not identify.

Hardy said the bishop was shaken up about the threats, but the church is taking extra precautions to ensure his safety.

“The bishop is upset about it,” Hardy said. “He is afraid, but he’s got a good bunch of people at the church that are going to be looking out and watching out for him.”

Hardy said Smiley is expected to have a bond hearing Wednesday at the Dallas County Courthouse at 9 a.m.

Hardy said a case like this questions the public’s safety wherever they go.

“It is strange to me, and it’s kind of scary because I’m a church going person myself,” Hardy said. “You basically don’t know what to expect wherever you go. People have these type of mindsets, and you don’t know it, and it is scary.”