…Much to Democrats Chagrin
This is an old story I was aware of, but I just referenced it elsewhere and I wanted to make sure it was holstered on my site.
Here is a bit from an article:
A Muslim man charged with setting fire to a Marietta mosque may be in the country illegally, law enforcement officials confirmed Thursday.
Tamsir Mendy, 26, a native of Gambia, has been charged with first-degree arson and is being held without bail at the Cobb County detention center, said Scott Tucker, Marietta assistant fire chief.
Federal authorities have placed an “ICE detainer” on Mendy — meaning he will be handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for possible deportation after his case is adjudicated, said Cobb sheriff’s department spokeswoman Nancy Bodiford.
While Mendy sat in jail Thursday, his wife’s cousin, Momodou Njie, was proclaiming his innocence.
“[Mendy] is not a criminal. It makes no sense for a Muslim to set fire to a mosque where he goes to pray everyday,” Njie told the AJC. “I think the authorities are looking for a quick answer and there he was. I still think this was a hate crime.”
Njie also insisted that Mendy was in the country legally.
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Of course Muslim’s do not think a fellow Muslim could do this… maybe it was the Mossad? This reminds me of the black churches being burnt in the South, and the media and Democrats bemoaning “right-wingers” as the cause. It turned out to be a black Democrat — then what?! Silence from the media. Here is some history on it followed by a more recent story:
A Church Arson Epidemic? It’s Smoke and Mirrors
By Michael Fumento
….The CDR claims there have been 90 arsons against black churches in nine Southern states since 1990, and that the number has risen each year, reaching 35 in 1996 as of June 18. Each and every culprit “arrested and/or detained,” it stresses, has been white.
But when I contacted law enforcement officials in several states on the CDR list, a very different picture emerged. The CDR, it turns out, regularly ignored fires set by blacks and those that occurred in the early part of the decade, and labeled fires as arsons that were not — all in an apparent effort to make black church torchings appear to be escalating.
- South Carolina. This state has by far the most arsons on the CDR list (27). But seven of those fires were either found not to be arsons or have not had their causes determined, according to Chief Robert Stewart of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division in Columbia. (In a note, the CDR’s report admits that two of the 27 fires were probably not arsons, but insists they are still suspicious. It makes no mention of the other five.) Moreover, far from all the arsonists having been white, eight of 18 arrested in South Carolina were black. While it’s not clear that all these arrests were made in time to make the CDR’s report, two were arrested more than a year ago.
- Georgia. Of the five fires the CDR lists as black church arsons, only two can be confirmed as such, says John Bankhead, public affairs officer at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. And one of those occurred at a church where “the congregation has about 1,000 members, of whom about a dozen are black.” What’s more, Mr. Bankhead’s records include one black church arson from 1995 that the CDR’s report omitted. The arsonist was black.
- Alabama. The CDR lists 10 church fires, all between 1994 and 1996. But State Fire Marshal John Robison says that only one of these was a confirmed arson (the perpetrator being a white fireman). One fire was determined to have been an accident, another is too recent to be classified, and four are being treated as possible arsons but are as yet undetermined. That leaves three more incidents on the CDR’s list of “Southern States Black Church Burnings” for Alabama. All were in Sumter County in February 1994. The Sumter County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that none were fires but rather vandalism. The CDR’s claim they were arson, I was told, was “a bald-faced lie.” Surprisingly, the CDR omitted one bona fide 1994 black church arson in which the culprits were white [see below]. It also left out two 1994 arsons committed by blacks. (One of them was the pastor of the church.) Moreover, the group left out 10 black church arsons that took place before 1994, again creating the illusion that the burning of black churches is a recent phenomenon.
- Mississippi. Of nine Mississippi fires in the CDR’s report, only three are confirmed arsons, says James Ingram, commissioner of public safety. And while the CDR reports no black church fires before 1993, Mr. Ingram’s list includes five between 1990 and 1992. One was committed by a black man; in another, black church members were suspected. Two of the Mississippi fires the CDR lists occurred this June 17; Mr. Ingram says they were clearly “copycat” crimes, spurred by the recent publicity.
Even the claim that black churches have been singled out for arson is questionable [again, see next story referenced]. In 1995, according to USA Today, there were 45 arsons against white churches and 27 against black ones in the surveyed states. Since whites outnumber blacks by four to one in these states, that seems on the surface to suggest a strong racist element.
But as USA Today pointed out, “a higher percentage of black churches are in economically depressed areas, traditionally a factor in arson.” Further, black churches tend to be smaller and therefore must be more numerous. Among the black churches USA Today surveyed, 67 percent had 100 or fewer members. Southern black churches often are in dark, lonely areas, are quite old and are made of wood. In other words, they’re an arsonist’s dream. Catholic churches, on the other hand, are virtually always made of brick or stone, and almost all are predominantly white.
So other than saying that some black churches over the years have fallen prey to racists, we can’t easily infer motives. “We have not uncovered in 38 cases a single piece of information to substantiate racially motivated fires,” said Alabama’s Mr. Robison. Further, the arsons have “been happening for at least seven years,” he said. “There have been no dramatic increases, except for this year because of the media hype.” Other states’ officials have told him the same….
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There is another story that included three you white males burning down churches in Alabama that is a bit more recent. However, in the general media’s missive they forgot to mention one thing, these men were equal opportunity attackers for the most part. Here is NPR on the story:
…The three students – Benjamin Moseley, Russell Debusk and Matthew Cloyd – initially said that they had burned the first five churches as a prank. They said they panicked and set the other four churches on fire to throw detectives off their trail. Many here still’don’t understand it.
Many of the churches targeted by the fires were predominantly black, but white congregations were struck, too. Over the past year, a small group of people from the western Alabama churches have forged an unusual partnership. They meet at least once a month in Aliceville, Ala., at a fast-food restaurant. Galilee Pastor Little routinely joins them. He says that in this area of Alabama, it’s unusual for an older white gentleman and a younger black man to be friends, “calling each other and communicating with each other and respecting each other’s ideas and visions.”
Before the churches burned, Little says he rarely saw blacks and whites working together in western Alabama. He says the fires and reconstruction have brought the black and white communities closer together.
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That last sentence, to get a bit theological here, is a great example of God working out a greater good from an evil. Another factor in church fires revolves around paganism. For instance, Rick Ross (I love his site) documents one such arson spree:
As many as 50 church fires in the Midwest and South over the past five years may have been solved all at once with the arrest of a man fascinated with the satanic.
Paramedics became suspicious of Jay Scott Ballinger, 36, because he waited two days before seeking treatment for severe burns he claimed to have suffered in a bonfire.
A Ball State University police officer, acting on a hunch, questioned him. Finally, last weekend, Ballinger admitted to federal authorities that he burned 30 to 50 churches in 11 states between 1994 and 1998.
So far, agents have connected Ballinger to close to 20 arsons, and he has been charged in seven of them, all involving rural churches in Indiana.
Agents said they aren’t certain of a motive, but Ballinger’s interest in the occult is clear. Police said a few years ago, he persuaded 50 teen-agers to sign contracts in blood pledging their souls to the devil.
Ballinger’s stripper girlfriend and another man have admitted taking part in burning an Indiana church where they painted an upside-down cross on the steps as part of a satanic ritual….
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The point here is that the narrative often heard in the press is merely presented with the lens of class-warfare — a Howard Zinn/Progressive view of history and motives. However, upon further review, the facts do not fit with the Liberal Progressive metanarrative [worldview].