Mississippi church member charged in ‘Vote Trump’ fire

WASHINGTON: A member of an African-American Baptist congregation in Mississippi was charged on Wednesday with setting fire to the church building, which was also spray-painted with the words “Vote Trump,” the authorities said.

Police in the western city of Greenville arrested Andrew McClinton, charged with one count of first-degree arson of a place of worship, police chief Delando Wilson said in a statement.

“McClinton is awaiting his initial appearance in Greenville Municipal Court,” he said.

McClinton, 45, who is AfricanAmerican, attended the Hopewell Baptist Church, which was burned on November 1, when the words “Vote Trump” were also painted on the building.

Fire officials at the time said the century-old church was fully engulfed in flames and sustained heavy heat, smoke and water damage.

The fire was “a direct assault on the Hopewell congregation’s right to freely worship,” Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons said in a statement on Wednesday. “There is no place for this heinous and divisive behaviour in our city.”

The authorities have not released a motive for the alleged arson and are trying to determine whether McClinton painted “Vote Trump” on the church, local television station WJTV reported.

However, officials do not believe the fire, set a week before Election Day, was politically motivated, The New York Times reported a state official as saying.

The Republican Donald Trump, who carried Mississippi by a large margin, lost to his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in overwhelmingly African-American Greenville.

The divisive President-elect is a fierce critic of the Black Lives Matter movement.