Reports: Most church fires not arson, nor hate crimes

Almost 20 years after Ku Klux Klan members burned down a Williamsburg County church, members of the community are wondering whether a fire that destroyed their church again Tuesday night was a hate crime.

The fire is one of seven church fires in the South being investigated by federal agents since the June 17 shooting of nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, according to the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Authorities Wednesday would not say whether Tuesday night’s fire was arson, though The Associated Press quoted an unnamed federal law enforcement source as saying preliminary indications are that the fire was not arson and not intentionally set.

But the Rev. Terrance Mackey, a former pastor of the church that burned and who went on to become president of the National Coalition for Burned Churches, said he believes this week’s fire was intentional and that there have been nine churches set on fire since the Charleston shootings.

He said church fires spiked after former President Bill Clinton, who visited the state to dedicate the newly built church in 1996, created a national task force to look at church fires. And he believes the same thing is happening now because of last week’s visit by President Barack Obama for the funeral of the pastor of the Emanuel AME Church killed in the Charleston shootings.

“Watch the pattern,” he said.

But according to studies of church fires in the past two decades reviewed by The Greenville News, most of the blazes are not arsons nor hate-crimes.

Though some church fires in South Carolina and throughout the nation have been set deliberately, most studied by a national task force in the 1990s were not committed as hate crimes against African-Americans, according to reports by the task force.

Records of the task force show that nationally, most of the church fires investigated over a five-year period happened at non-African-American churches and more than a third of those who were arrested for fires at black churches were minorities.

Church arsons, bombings or attempted bombings have dropped significantly over the years, going from 297 such incidents in 1996 to 82 by August 2000, according to the task force’s last report.

Of 945 church arson and bombing investigations conducted from January 1995 to August 2000, 310 were of black churches and 635 were other churches, according to the final report by the National Church Arson Task Force.

Even in the South, where the numbers were closer, white or other church fires outnumbered black church fires, 273 to 213.

Of 136 arrests of suspects in arsons of black churches between 1995-2000, 37.5 percent were minorities, according to the task force report. Of the 431 total arrests for all church fires, 169 were of juveniles, the task force reported.

The final reported noted that 46 of 79 defendants convicted of federal charges between 1995 and 2000 were motivated by bias, and 37 of those were convicted of hate crimes.

Heating equipment and intentional fires each were blamed for 16 percent of the fires, according to the report, with cooking equipment causing another 30 percent. Electrical fires accounted for 10 percent of the fires and candles and lighting each caused another 4 percent each, the agency reported.

Of the seven South Carolina church fires documented in the first National Church Arson Task Force report, two, in Greeleyville and Manning, were set by KKK members.

Thom Berry, a spokesman for the State Law Enforcement Division, said this week his agency is currently investigating an Aiken County church fire as well as the Greeleyville fire. He said SLED does not automatically investigate any church fire. The agency can be requested by local authorities, he said.

“We sent agents to the scene last night,” he said of the Williamsburg County fire. “They are continuing to do their work with the assistance of an arson dog we have. We are taking samples that will be sent to our laboratory here in Columbia for analysis. So our work in this matter is continuing.”

Officials at a news conference Wednesday in Greeleyville said they have not ruled out any causes and will continue their investigations.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 8:00 PM with the headline "Reports: Most church fires not arson, nor hate crimes."