{"id":29991,"date":"2016-11-03T02:14:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-03T02:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/vote-trump-sprayed-on-fire-damaged-black-us\/"},"modified":"2016-11-03T02:13:51","modified_gmt":"2016-11-03T02:13:51","slug":"vote-trump-sprayed-on-fire-damaged-black-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/vote-trump-sprayed-on-fire-damaged-black-us\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Vote Trump’ sprayed on fire-damaged black US church"},"content":{"rendered":"

{FBI investigating whether “any civil rights crimes were committed” after sanctuary was vandalised in Mississippi.}<\/p>\n

A black church in Mississippi has been burned and spray-painted with “Vote Trump” on an outside wall, according to US authorities.<\/p>\n

The fire in the city of Greenville comes less than a week before a presidential election that pits Republican Donald Trump against Democrat Hillary Clinton.<\/p>\n

Fire Chief Ruben Brown told the Associated Press news agency that firefighters found flames and smoke pouring from the sanctuary of the Hopewell MB Church just after 9pm on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Brown said the sanctuary sustained heavy damage, including in the kitchen and pastor’s office. He said investigators do not know yet if it is a case of arson.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the FBI’s office in Jackson, the state capital, said it was working “with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners to determine if any civil rights crimes were committed”.<\/p>\n

There were no reports of injuries.<\/p>\n

‘Hateful and cowardly act’<\/p>\n

The mayor of Greenville, Errick Simmons, described the incident as a “hateful and cowardly act”.<\/p>\n

He said local officials consider the fire a hate crime because of the political message he believes was intended to interfere with worship and intimidate voters.<\/p>\n

“The act that happened left our hearts broken,” Pastor Carolyn Hudson told a news conference, noting that the church has a 111-year history.<\/p>\n

A donation drive on a crowdfunding website raised more than $41,000 for repairs of the church within six hours on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“The animus of this election cycle combined with the potent racial history of burning black churches as a political symbol makes this event something we must not ignore,” the fundraiser said.<\/p>\n

Last year, there were several fires at predominantly black churches in southern states following the shooting at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June. Nine people were killed.<\/p>\n

The trial for the suspect in that case, Dylann Roof, is scheduled to begin on Monday.<\/p>\n

\"Authorities<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{FBI investigating whether “any civil rights crimes were committed” after sanctuary was vandalised in Mississippi.} A black church in Mississippi has been burned and spray-painted with “Vote Trump” on an outside wall, according to US authorities. The fire in the city of Greenville comes less than a week before a presidential election that pits Republican […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-29991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29991\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29991"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=29991"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=29991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}