Deputies set to forcibly remove Church of Urth from Mercy Junction

Tyler Short answers the door but refuses to leave when asked by Mercy Junction director Beth Foster, left, on Friday morning. A writ has been filed and law enforcement will be evicting occupants with the Church of Urth.
Tyler Short answers the door but refuses to leave when asked by Mercy Junction director Beth Foster, left, on Friday morning. A writ has been filed and law enforcement will be evicting occupants with the Church of Urth.

God may have told Ryan Holmes the Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center is his, but that won't mean anything to local law enforcement if an expected eviction order is handed down this morning.

"As soon as we get that writ, yes, we're going to execute it," Capt. Ron Parson, who oversees civil processing for the Hamilton County Sheriff's Office, said Thursday of the month-long effort to oust Holmes and his partner, Tyler Short, from the building.

Known collectively as the "Church of Urth," Holmes and Short have been holed up in the Union Avenue center since mid-May, claiming church elders have no authority to give them the boot because they aren't landlords.

Mercy Junction denies that, saying Holmes violated a lease agreement by making misogynist comments on Facebook and in person, driving away renters, and representing himself as the center. Director Beth Foster initiated legal proceedings after Holmes and Short ignored an eviction notice and won a crucial court order last week when neither man showed up to court.

That order essentially awarded possession of Mercy Junction back to its elders and director, attorney Robin Flores said. And though the Church of Urth had 10 days to appeal the finding, neither man had done so by the 4 p.m. Thursday deadline, clerks said.

All that's left is that a court clerk must endorse the "writ of possession" that Flores plans to file at 9 a.m. today in Hamilton County General Sessions Court. After that, deputies have legal authority to enter Mercy Junction and remove both men. Unlike Holmes, Short's name is not on the lease. However, he has been trespassing, and authorities can eject him on those grounds, Flores said.

"I just hope everybody stays safe. I know he's not going to want to go," said one Mercy Junction elder who asked not to be identified because of an encounter Thursday with Holmes that's become all too familiar to many involved with the center.

Working from her office, the elder received a call around 11 a.m. from a plumber who'd been hired to work on the center, which rents about 30 spaces to artists, activists and other interfaith organizations. "There's someone here who wants to talk to you," she recalled the plumber saying. A young man's voice came on the line: Holmes. He said something about being the landlord, mentioned a work order, and hung up.

Then came Holmes' text messages, which the elder shared with the Times Free Press.

"To whom it may be concerned," one began, "The property at 1918 Union Ave., Chattanooga TN 37404 in Highland Park formerly known as St. Andrews Center and Mercy Junction Justice and Peace Center is not for sale or purchase. It has been inherited by the Church of Urth by Devine [sic] decree."

Holmes declared himself the landlord, sent pictures of "machete-murdered" children in Nigeria, expressed frustration at Christians for sitting by idly during genocides, and said he wanted to visit.

"Tell me who is trying to sell the building and I will change my focus," he wrote in another message. "If not, my focus stays on you and will branch to your family as well. I have access to public records and most info on the internet. Either comply or we keep pressing you."

The elder said she called police and drove to the center. An officer checked on everything, said he couldn't press charges because there was "nothing in the text that said he was going to come cut me up," and left.

Some Mercy Junction people said that's been a common reaction to charging Holmes so far. The only option is to wait for court proceedings to finish. Renters, however, are starting to leave because they don't want to encounter Holmes - and that's putting a financial strain on a center that recently fired its staff to pay the bills.

"We were in a very vulnerable place already," director Beth Foster said. "We'd been grant-funded for five years. We were supposed to build up an independent revenue stream, and it was the rent our building partners paid. Once that fell off, we knew there was no way to pay our staff, so we laid everybody off May 15."

The center wanted to avoid more expense while working toward a resolution with Holmes and Short, Foster said. Officials expected it would take a week or two. "But now it's been 43 days and we've lost 53 percent of our revenue," she said.

In the meantime, those who venture into the center have noticed small acts of vandalism.

"We haven't received any bills for June in the mail so far, so we suspected they were stealing our mail but had no way to prove it," Foster said.

Then came Tuesday, when Holmes posted a picture on Facebook of an opened letter to a Mercy Junction member from an inmate in Arizona, Foster said. She notified a local postmaster and called the police, who came to the scene, made a report, and said they would issue a misdemeanor warrant for mail theft, she said.

Police spokesman Rob Simmons did not know the status of that warrant Thursday afternoon. As of press time, Holmes was not booked in the Hamilton County Jail.

Though he previously communicated with the Times Free Press via Facebook, Holmes has since lost access to his profile.

Short, however, posted an open letter Tuesday "to all whom are interested in my side of the story."

"Although we are more capable now than in any other time in written history to make life wonderful for everyone, we decide instead to continue to damage the planet and to allow our brothers and sisters across the world to suffer," he wrote. "Urth is the collective utopian future of a transcendent civilization sharing love and abundance this platform gives people the opportunity to make a stand as one that the fate of our species is more important than being right."

Short said he developed the concept of "Urth" while traveling and writing in South America in 2015. When he returned to Red Bank, he met Holmes, of Cleveland, Tenn., and they collaborated for the next several months until sharing their idea to move into Mercy Junction in December 2016. The church agreed to let them lease a space.

The relationship soured in May after "there was an obvious shift in Ryan," Short wrote.

Holmes, who didn't post much on Facebook, began writing messages claiming he was the Archangel Michael and that all music, art and literature were about him.

"It was a spectacle. People could not look away, and most had no idea what to think," Short wrote.

After some people expressed concern for his mental health and called the police, Holmes' parents requested he submit to a psychiatric evaluation, Short said. But over the weekend of May 12, police struggled to get an evaluator to the scene, Short said.

"Not knowing what to do, backup was called. A total of five police officers showed up one by one and discussed possibilities," Short wrote. "The conversation then quickly started changing direction from locating a [psychiatrist] to removing Ryan from our sanctuary."

At some point during the encounter, Holmes walked outside and asked the police to leave, saying no crimes had been committed. "A couple of hours later, a psychiatrist finally showed up and gave him an evaluation," Short wrote.

"He passed."

Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.

Upcoming Events