Thread: Suspect arrested for arson following string of St. Louis church fires

Another race hate crime spun by the SLC debunked by facts. I wonder if anyone has looked into the religion of the arsonist as a motive in the fires against Christian churches...

Suspect arrested for arson following string of St. Louis church fires


By Lindsey Bever and Elahe Izadi October 30


Deacon Clinton McMiller, left, and Pastor David Triggs carry a cabinet back into the church after an outdoor service Oct. 18 due to a fire at the New Life Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis. (J.B. Forbes/St. Louis Post-Dispatch via AP)

A suspect has been arrested and charged with arson following a string of church fires this month in St. Louis, authorities announced Friday.
David Lopez Jackson, 35, faces two counts of arson in connection with two church fires, St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson said. Jackson remains a suspect in five other church fires, which are under active investigation.

“Hopefully, there are more charges coming,” Dotson said at a Friday news conference.


David Lopez Jackson (St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department via AP)

Authorities said the fires don’t appear to be the result of a hate crime or the targeting of a particular Christian denomination of ethnic group. Several of the churches that were attacked were predominantly African American, but at least two were not. Jackson is black, according to police.

Dotson said the motive is still unclear.

“Arson of any kind is disturbing,” St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay said Friday. “It is especially disturbing when arson is directed at the very foundation of our community.”

[Arson suspected at seven St. Louis area churches]

The arsons began as the area was still reeling from the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a grand jury’s decision not to charge former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson for pulling the trigger.

At the start, some assumed the arsonist was targeting African American churches. It made many remember the nine African American parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., who were shot and killed — and weeks later, the churches that started burning across the South. However, at least one St. Louis church that was torched was mixed-race church and another — Shrine of St. Joseph Catholic Church — had a predominantly white congregation, police said.

Police said each arson started the same way, with the church’s front doors sprayed with accelerant and then set ablaze. The fires started Oct. 8 with Bethel Nondenominational Church in Jennings, a small town near Ferguson. Two days later, police said, nearby New Northside Missionary Baptist Church had been set on fire.

Soon churches in the city of St. Louis started burning.

Charges against Jackson stem from fires at New Life Missionary Baptist and Ebenezer Lutheran churches. He is being held on a $75,000 cash bond.

Surveillance footage shows Jackson’s car at the scene of the New Life Missionary Baptist Church fire, according to police. A gasoline cannister and thermos that “smelled like gasoline” was found in his car, Dotson said.

St. Augustine Catholic Church was in flames on Oct. 14, New Testament Church of Christ on Oct. 15, and then both New Life Missionary Baptist Church and Ebenezer Lutheran Church on Oct. 17.

In most cases, police said, the fires did not spread beyond the buildings’ front doors. New Life Missionary Baptist Church — recently renamed United Believers in Christ Ministries — was an exception. The church’s pastor and police said the flames crept through cracks and crannies, and spread through the building.

[Five predominantly black Southern churches burn within a week; arson suspected in at least three]

“There’s so much division among the body of believers. I think God is allowing this to happen to bring churches closer together so we can fight a spiritual battle,” the church’s pastor, David Triggs, had told The Washington Post. “The arsonist, he’s not my enemy. I forgave him the moment I pulled up to the burning church. I believe he is spiritually sick, and that’s the way we have to address this — by setting our differences aside and praying together.”

The seventh church, Shrine of St. Joseph Catholic Church, was found in flames Oct. 22.

For weeks, parishioners had been picking up the pieces, calling the arsons “destructive” and “disappointing,” and saying it “disturbs the heart.” But pastors said it was an opportunity to bring the church together.

“I don’t want people to become angry, hostile or lose our faith over this,” Triggs said. “Let’s pray together. Let’s stand together. Let’s fight this battle together.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-church-fires/
Suspect arrested in St.

The SPLC's 'assessment" on their fundraising page.

[QUOTE]

ARSON SUSPECTED IN SIX CHURCH FIRES IN ST. LOUIS

Bill Morlin
October 19, 2015

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the St. Louis Fire Department are investigating six church fires in St. Louis since October 8.

Editors' Note: Authorities have arrested a suspect in the arsons. Read more here.

An arsonist is blamed for setting a weekend fire at the entrance of a predominantly black church in St. Louis – the sixth suspicious blaze of its kind in 10 days in that community.

“It is arson,” St. Louis Fire Capt. Garon Mosby told media outlets. “These [fires] are being intentionally set.”

The six church arson fires – all within a three mile radius -- have occurred in North St. Louis, near Ferguson, the scene of rioting and increased racial tensions following the August 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the St. Louis Fire Department are investigating to determine if there’s a connection between the fire church fires.

No suspects have been identified or arrested.

The most recent occurred just before dawn Saturday at New Life Missionary Baptist Church in the in the Walnut Park East neighborhood in northwest St. Louis.


Fire-damaged New Life Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis (Facebook photo).

Damage primarily was confined to an exterior wall, the roof and a doorway where the blaze appeared to have been set. With smoke damage in the interior of the church, the congregation held Sunday’s regular service on folding chairs on the lawn outside the charred house of worship.

“This was done by the mind of someone who is spiritually sick,” the church’s pastor, Rev. David Triggs, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The latest string of church arson fires began on Oct. 8 when someone set fire to the Bethel Non-Denominational Church, also in northwest St. Louis. That fire, also set at a doorway, caused minimal damage.

On Oct. 10, the second fire occurred at the New Northside Missionary Baptist Church. On Oct. 14, an arsonist started a fire at St. Augustine Catholic Church. The following day, another arson fire was reported at New Testament Church of Christ.

David A. Love, a prominent journalist and commenter on African American topics, told Hatewatch today that the “arson of five black churches in St. Louis in 10 days is both alarming and not surprising.

“This is alarming because domestic terrorism is alive and well,” Love said. It is such a problem that the U.S. Department of Justice recently predicted increases in violent acts by white extremists who are responding to a new reality in which people of color will become a majority in America.’

“At the same time,” Love said, “there is a vicious cycle created by rightwing politicians, the NRA and hate groups who stir up anger, fear and resentment over changing demographics and want their country back. Arson and other crimes are a natural outgrowth of that. These groups need a scapegoat, whether African Americans, Latino immigrants, the LGBTQ community or others.”

In a follow-up comment to Hatewatch, Love noted that, "It is interesting, and more than coincidence, that St. Louis has also witnessed a great deal of racial tension and violence, in light of the events in Ferguson. In an environment which fosters government sponsored racism -- police violence against black residents, racial profiling and economic exploitation through a system of court fees amounting to a black debtors' prisons -- it does not take such a stretch of the imagination to consider that some private citizens may feel emboldened to take matters in their own hands.

The fires in St. Louis come four months after a string of six church fires in the days following the June 17 murderous rampage by a white supremacist who fatally shot nine people at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C. Of those fires in four southern states, some were accidentally started or caused by lightning, but authorities said three were the work of arsonists.

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/10/19/arson-suspected-six-church-fires-st-louis

The comments from the 11'donors/supporters of the SPLC. They eat it up like candy.

womanwhorunswithchickens • 20 days agoThis is more than an increase in St. Louis, this is a matter that has happened everywhere because of the spread of hate over the Internet, however I believe that more people do desire peace and do not want to be a part of the poisonous philosophy that runs through the veins of racist terrorist in this country. Burning down peoples places of worship is the cowardly act of terrorist and monsters, home grown terrorist right here in America terrorizing innocent Americans. May God deal with them with his own ways of justice. And expose them so they may be brought to justice in a court of law.








Weapons of Choice • 20 days ago5 Church Fires=Domestic White Supremacist Terrorism.
I hope they catch the racist perp and send him to ADX in Colorado.



Then the truth came out and the posters had to acknowledge it. How much does the SPLC receive in tax payer dollars to "advise" the DHS etc?