So, I’m eager to hear from the “Christianity is under assault in America!” crowd about who is setting black churches on fire near Ferguson, Missouri.
In Missouri, a $2,000 reward is being offered for any information leading to the arrest of a suspected arsonist targeting churches in predominately black neighborhoods. Since October 8, six church fires have been set in the St. Louis area, near Ferguson, all within a three-mile radius.
New Life Missionary Baptist Church was one of the hardest hit, with flames tearing through the entire entrance, reports CBS News’ Adriana Diaz. The pastor said he believes the arsonist squirted some sort of chemical through the mail slot to help the fire spread even faster.
“We are called today to address what is possibly the most dangerous onslaught that we’ve experienced in many, many years, which is an attack on God’s house,” said James Clark of Better Family Life.
With a suspected arsonist still at large, church leaders in and around St. Louis urged community members to remain vigilant Tuesday.
The New Life Missionary Baptist Church was so badly damaged, it held services outside Sunday.
Authorities don’t yet know who sparked the flames or why, but they believe the crimes are connected. In each case, an accelerant was used to light the front doors of the churches on fire. The buildings were all unoccupied at the times of the attacks.
“There’s a very alarming pattern to these fires so we don’t want to get out of hand,” St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.
And I’m betting the answers you will get from the “Christianity is under assault!” crowd is that the arsonists may be:
- A secret army of Syrian refugee Muslims in Ferguson
- Black Lives Matter activists
- Obama
- Saul Alinsky
- A secret army of Syrian refugee Muslims who are Black Lives Matter activists
- Obama’s brownshirts in a false flag operation designed to take our flamethrowers
- Lightning strikes, probably
- Heatwave, who didn’t have Captain Cold to keep him in line
- Obama, pretty sure it was Obama
- Aliens, man
- The sun
- COBRA, just being jerks again
- The Illuminati
- Evil fire elementals and/or efreeti, or other denizens of the Elemental Plane of Fire
- Maybe Obama
- Pyron from Darkstalkers (who is an evil alien fire elemental from the sun, see)
- Valerie Jarrett
- Big Boy Caprice
- Shaggy (wasn’t him, he says)
- Can you prove Obama didn’t set those fires?
What they will not answer:
So yeah, who knows. I’m sure the cops are real eager to solve this one either way, right.
ruemara
People have already been claiming it was electrical fires, no big deal. We need national come get your cousin day, so decent allies can sit down deniers and explain that this stuff is real.
scav
didn’t you forget the jusgement of god almighty, raising his mighty hand, which would be a two-fer as that means they, the lazy parishioners, can’t mooch money of the beleagered insurance companies?
Comrade Dread
No, this won’t get much national press or outrage from the usual suspects because black Christians are generally not the ‘right’ kind of Christians.
debbie
You left out Jeremiah Wright. After all, he’s the man who singlehandedly hates America.
OzarkHillbilly
No dead babies yet. Or pretty white girls from west county.
MattF
Kenyan Obamacare Sharia. And, btw, Benghazi. Obviously.
ETA: And Ebola.
Keith G
Doesn’t matter. Church arson brings in the feds.
MomSense
Zandar, you forgot Ebola infected ISIS fighters crossing the border from Mexico.
Serious question: Do the tv reports even mention that these are black churches?
Fair Economist
A $2,000 reward? For a serial arsonist? Is that a joke?
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: the STL Post Disgrace does. Has actually been doing some pretty good reporting of this for a while. Amazing really. I don’t know about TV. Don’t watch it.
SFAW
@Fair Economist:
Well, it’s not as if real Americans went to those churches.
Humboldtblue
Does it matter if the arsonists are caught? They’ll just get a favorable Grand Jury and walk if McCullough has anything to say about it.
john b
having some experience with how a city has dealt with a serial arsonist (not a church burner in this case). There is really is a danger in publicizing it too much, because you then see an uptick in copycat offenders. It’s a tough nut to crack. This isn’t to say that intentions are good in the Ferguson area by the police etc., but just because you don’t see this stuff in the news doesn’t necessarily mean no one cares.
Zandar
@MomSense: The local Fox station in St. Louis doesn’t. At all.
OzarkHillbilly
@Fair Economist: The damage has so far been very minimal. I mentioned yesterday or the day before that this is a really incompetent racist. As I said above, “No dead babies yet. Or pretty white girls from west county.” Once either of those conditions are met, they will get more serious. Also I don’t know who is putting up the money, if it’s the churches, chances are pretty good they don’t have a lot to spare.
OzarkHillbilly
@Humboldtblue: McCullough will never get close to these cases. The churches so far have all been in north STL, which means that would be Jennifer Joyce who would get it. She’s better if for no other reason than that you can’t get elected in STL w/o a fair percentage of the black vote.
MomSense
@Zandar:
I like the vague fires are intended to send a message. Hmmmm what message would that be?
$2,000 reward? That’s it?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Glad they are doing good reporting. Unfortunately I think you are an outlier in your lack of tv watching. I think most people get their news from the boob tube.
srv
Most business-related arson is usually an insurance scam.
Fr33d0m
I’d have thought liberal godless secularist atheists would’ve been somewhat obvious.
BGinCHI
The American Right waters the tree of liberty with the fire of church-burning yet again.
Maybe history will call the GOP the Snopes Party.
Chris
@Comrade Dread:
This is exactly what occurred to me when the whole spate of “they’re targeting CHRISTIANS not BLACKS” started last summer. How good of them to even admit that black churches are Christian! Normally, it’s all about how they’re “social justice” churches or “black nationalist” churches which are Antichrist-Marxist institutions, or they just flat out pretend that they’re another religion (i.e. Obama = Muslim).
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: I know I’m an outlier. It’s not an accident.
benw
Zandar’s list is only missing Jade Helm and Hillz (feat. zombie Vince Foster).
Also, why hasn’t the NRA given assault rifles to all the black people St. Louis? Or at least gun-store vouchers? That would fix this.
And shouldn’t the Oathkeepers be swooping in any second now?
Face
You meant ACORN, didnt you? How would an extended employee health insurance program light a match?
Iowa Old Lady
@Face: Isn’t Cobra the organization that GI Joe fights?
benw
@Face: I assume he means not COBRA, per se, but probably those stupid Dreadnoks (who are lead by Zandar, in a nice bit of circular logic).
Just One More Canuck
@srv: Even if that is true (sources, please), what has that got to do with churches being set alight?
Punchy
@Humboldtblue: Is it even “arson” if it’s Black churches? Isn’t it more accurately called gentrification, and how can that be a crime?
Chris
@srv:
Ah, there we go.
“THE VICTIMS DID IT! IT’S A PLOT!”
Shades of Michelle Malkin’s “John Kerry shot himself.”
Brachiator
@Chris:
Normally? Really? Where has there ever been a mainstream news story that identified a black church as a social justice or black nationalist church, where the church itself did not use that designation?
The local police may also lack the resources or the experience to deal with this. Are state and federal authorities involved?
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m pretty sure most of us here are outliers or misfits depending on who is doing the identifying.
trollhattan
@Just One More Canuck:
Confused as per usual, but was doubtless thinking of these businesses.
Ryan
You forgot Hillary. After all, she burned down the compound in Benghazi. You might also consider adding Sid Blumenthal.
Bobby Thomson
You forgot atheists. Especially the gay muslin ones.
peach flavored shampoo
I think black churches collect too much sunlight/heat and spontaneously combust. Perhaps they should paint them white instead to lower their fire risk.
Aaron
I think the feguson police will like to solve these fires: its real police work, it shows that they are not racist because look we caught the white supremacists, we’re not just a bunch of goons, plus these aren’t locals so no local loyalty.
I could be wrong though.
OzarkHillbilly
@Brachiator:
The local investigating authorities, the St. Louis Police Dept. and the St. Louis Fire Dept. (STLFD does all fire investigations) have the resources and the experience. In plenty.
For the record as I doubt most are aware, St Louis City (where the fires have so far been occurring) is an entirely separate entity from St Louis County (for reasons having to do with the Civil War believe it or not). It is a weird bastardization of governance that has long been detrimental to the city in many ways* and for many reasons.**
* one of the ways is that STL city has no control over their police dept, the state legislature does
** all of those reasons somehow or other come down to race. Not sure why. It almost seems like white West Countians are afraid of black people invading Chesterfield or something.
Linda Featheringill
@peach flavored shampoo:
You must have gotten up before breakfast to think of that one. :-)
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Hmmmm… No wonder I don’t feel like I’m about to be turned to a pillar of salt when hanging out here.
max
@scav: didn’t you forget the jusgement of god almighty, raising his mighty hand
Tsk. It was the tax cuts. They didn’t support the tax cuts and the good and righteous God of Prosperity struck them down.
max
[‘And then he attended the candidate forum at Prestonwood Baptist Church! Now there’s a home of the faithful.’]
Linda Featheringill
I read the WaPo report on these fires. The arsonist is definitely an amateur if the results are a good measure. There probably isn’t a history of fire-related crimes. Hell, maybe not even a parking ticket.
It looks to me like one white guy, working alone.
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks for the info. Once I was able to look at one of the links, I could see that, as you say, the fire department is involved.
Makes sense. Los Angeles Fire Department takes the lead in arson investigations here.
Yeah, that’s often the unfortunate backdrop to a lot of this crap.
For what it’s worth, the Captain Mosby quoted above is a black man.
ETA: another link notes that federal agents are investigating this as well as local authorities.
OzarkHillbilly
@Brachiator:
Quite common in the STL for that to be, so common it isn’t even noticed by residents. Both the FD and the PD work hard at making sure every qualified member of the Departments has an equal shot at moving up the ladder. Mind you, a lot of hard fights were fought making that true.
trollhattan
Ironically, one of dad’s cigarette brands.
Labrys
In Seattle, a mosque has recently suffered many suspicious fires is in its area, including in the building itself. Most of the people attending this mosque appear to be black. So of course, the news is bending over backwards to say that they don’t know if the fires are connected and perhaps some perfectly normal “non-hate crime” exclamation will be found.
John M. Burt
It wasn’t bad enough, the way they mess with our insurance claims…?
ET
I have to say when I heard about these church fires I just assumed they were black – no news outlet had to say they were black or mostly so. This is the kind of thing that really seems explicitly and historically targeted at AA communities. Also, I suspect that the news would be assume a certain level of knowledge because their viewers would be familiar with the locations.
The DC area had a serial arsonist a few years ago and there was coverage but I think that some information is intentional left out because arsonists have specific signatures and having copycats particularly those that get close to that signature muddy the waters quite a bit for investigators.
Cacti
@srv:
Congressman Issa (R-CA) knows all about that, doesn’t he?
MattF
OT, and a Politico link. It seems that Jeb!’s brother doesn’t like Ted Cruz. Not one bit.
benw
@MattF: Nobody likes Ted Cruz, not even the people who agree with his rotten worldview and want to vote for him.
Cacti
@OzarkHillbilly:
Burning a black church in Ferguson? Meh.
Driving while black in Frontenac? Now that’s the kind of thing that gets local law enforcement’s attention.
Keith G
Dickerson is tweeting that Biden will not run
Humboldtblue
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks
Woodrowfan
@srv: I knew there’d be a troll here going the “insurance fraud” route…
Brachiator
@OzarkHillbilly:
The same has been true in Southern Cal and a lot of other places.
celticdragonchick
@benw:
Also Chandra Nalaar the Pyromancer from Magic:The Gathering.
However, I suppose she would be more apt to burning entire cities…
Paul in KY
@peach flavored shampoo: Well played there.
MaxUtil
Really? No one has pointed out that this is obviously part of Planned Parenthood’s campaign of ethnic cleansing? I’m actually disappointed. Seems so obvious.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Shit like this depresses me beyond words. It’s been 400 years, and white people still can’t treat Black Americans like they’re full citizens who are worthy of respect.
I’ve come to believe that a great swath of whites actually resent Black people. Your typical white conservative asshole has pretty much every conceivable advantage over most Black people but one: Black Americans get sympathy for their plight from many of us, and a lot of us recognize that they have a certain moral authority on things having to do with race that we’ll never have. And conservatives can’t stand that. It eats them alive. The shorthand for this is, “Why can Chris Rock say ‘nigger’ and I can’t?”
I’m beginning to think that we’ll never get beyond this same old shit until things begin burning down, and I’m not talking about Black churches, here. Only when some white people’s shit starts getting burned down are things going to get any better. I’m not looking forward to that, since, well, nobody wants to see shit burning in the streets. But in all seriousness, I don’t see any other way. I only hope I’m wrong about this.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@srv:
Jeez, dude, it’s like you aren’t even trying any longer. You need to get in the game here, man.
Enhanced Voting Techiniques
The fires were caused by the infamous terrorist Obama bin Biden.
Theodore Wirth
This is Murka and money talks. That said, it’s left to the insurance companies who have the most financial incentive to solve this destruction of property that is covered by their insurance policies. Let’s hope that they are up to the challenge.
A guy
Could be electrical issues or lightening like the ones in South Carolina that the media failed to rrport