An Over-the-Rhine minister spent Monday thanking God for his life and making good on his many sermons about forgiveness.

        The Rev. Cornell Sweet, 78, didn't notice the police barricades when he left his First Born Church of the Living God. It was about 8:30 p.m. Sunday, after the minister had preached his second sermon of the day. He left the church, got into his Cadillac and headed along Mulberry Street.

        Just as he heard a bang, a bullet shot through his car door. It bored through his upper left thigh, then stopped in his right.

        “I'm pretty good,” the Rev. Mr. Sweet said Monday afternoon, relaxing in his Avondale house in his pajamas, bathrobe and slippers. “Thank the Lord, I'm glad for that.”

        The Rev. Mr. Sweet, the tiny church's minister for more than three decades, didn't know Stephon Johnson, the man with a history of mental problems who is accused of firing dozens of shots in the 11-hour standoff with police. Mr. Johnson, 25, faces charges of felonious assault and inducing panic.

        Investigators spent much of the day at the scene, finding spent bullets. Vine Street Elementary School, across the street, was closed for the day.

        Mr. Johnson's mother visited the Rev. Mr. Sweet at University Hospital shortly after the shooting.

        “She was very, very broken over it,” the minister said. “I told her, "It's not your fault. You didn't do anything.'”

        The bullet will stay in the Rev. Mr. Sweet's thigh unless it causes problems, he said. Doctors told him removing it could cause more trouble. He plans to go back to his church as soon as police are finished processing the Cadillac for evidence.

        He will also concentrate, he said, on the many lessons he has preached about justice and forgiveness.

        “You've got all kinds of people out here now who do all kinds of things we don't understand,” he said. “But we have to remember to forgive.”

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