'Vote Trump' painted on outside of burned Mississippi church
A fire at the Hopewell Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, is being investigated as a hate crime, with Mayor Errick Simmons saying he won't "rest until the culprit is found and fully prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Hopewell Baptist is a historical black church with 200 members, and the fire has "left our hearts broken," Pastor Carolyn Hudson told NBC News. When firefighters arrived Tuesday night at around 9:15 p.m., they found the main sanctuary up in flames and "Vote Trump" spray painted on an outside wall. Hudson said the church hasn't received any threats recently. Investigators believe this is an act of arson, and the city's police chief said that while there is no surveillance footage of the fire being set, they are talking with a person of interest. No arrests have been made.
Simmons called the fire a "hateful and cowardly act" that is an "attack on the black community." Fires like this happened in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s, he said, and "it shouldn't happen in 2016." When asked by NBC News, Simmons said he has not heard from Donald Trump or his campaign. Catherine Garcia
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Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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