Arson suspect arrested in spate of fires in Mississippi, including two churches
Police in Mississippi’s capital have arrested a 23-year-old man accused of setting fire to at least six buildings – including two churches – on Tuesday near the campus of Jackson State University, a historically Black college.
Though the fires were set on the same day as the midterm elections, the assistant chief of the Jackson fire department told media outlets that investigators had no immediate reason to believe the blazes were politically motivated.
“We may find out it was something connected to that, but my first inclination is this has nothing to do with election,” said the assistant chief, Patrick Armon. “This … just coincidentally happened close to election day.”
Authorities identified the arson suspect as Devin McLaurin. McLaurin, who is Black, is facing at least one count of malicious mischief, said the police chief of Jackson, James Davis.
Calls about the half-dozen fires came in between 2.30am and 4.30am on Tuesday morning, the television news station WLBT reported. The worst of those blazes razed Epiphany church, while two fires damaged another church, Greater Bethlehem Temple, and a field on which the Jackson State University baseball team practices, according to investigators.
Police said they tied McLaurin to the fires in part by using surveillance video.
Sheriff’s deputies in Hinds county said they found McLaurin in the nearby community of Terry after receiving a tip. WLBT reported that McLaurin professed his innocence as he was escorted into Jackson police headquarters.
There were no injuries reported as a result of the fires, and access to polling places in Jackson was not affected, officials said.
Lloyd Caston of the Epiphany church told the Associated Press that the structure was 85 years old and renovations had just been been completed in March, but the fire had “destroyed the church and everything in it”.
He was alerted by a family member who lives nearby and arrived in time to see it completely engulfed in flame.
“I was hurt,” Caston said. “There wasn’t nothing we could do but sit and watch. That was it.”