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Fire Marshal: Politics Unlikely Motive in 'Vote Trump' Arson

by Associated Press

   JACKSON, MISS. --

   The Mississippi fire marshal says investigators don't see politics as
   the motivation for the burning of an African-American church that was
   also spray-painted with the words "Vote Trump'' a week before the
   presidential election.
   But Mississippi Insurance Commissioner Mike Chaney, who is also state
   fire marshal, says there are signs the vandalism may have been done to
   appear that way.
   A man who is a member of the church and has a prior criminal record was
   arrested Wednesday and charged with first-degree arson of a place of
   worship. Andrew McClinton, 45, of Leland, Mississippi, is scheduled to
   make an initial court appearance Thursday in Greenville -- the city
   where Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church was burned and vandalized Nov.
   1.
   Officials have not revealed a possible motive.
   "We do not believe it was politically motivated. There may have been
   some efforts to make it appear politically motivated,'' Chaney told The
   Associated Press.
   Hopewell Bishop Clarence Green said McClinton, who is African-American,
   is a member of the church. Green said he didn't know about the arrest
   until he was called by the AP.
   "This is the first I have heard of it,'' said Green, who said he was
   attending to other church duties and didn't have time for a longer
   interview.
   It was not clear whether McClinton has an attorney.
   Mississippi Department of Corrections records show McClinton was
   sentenced in 1991 to three years' probation for a grand larceny
   conviction in Washington County, where Greenville is the county seat.
   His probation was revoked in 1992 for receiving stolen property in
   Greenville, said Department of Corrections spokeswoman Grace Simmons
   Fisher.
   In 1997, McClinton was sentenced to seven years for attempted robbery
   in Lee County. And, in 2004, he was convicted of armed robbery in Lee
   County. He served eight years in prison and was released in January
   2012, and Fisher said the prisons agency ended its supervision over him
   in February.
   Greenville is a Mississippi River port city of about 32,100 people, and
   about 78 percent of its residents are African-American. While it's not
   unusual for people of different racial backgrounds to work and eat
   lunch together, local residents say the congregations at most churches
   remain clearly identifiable by race.
   Greenville Mayor Errick D. Simmons called the church burning "a direct
   assault on the Hopewell congregation's right to freely worship.''
   "There is no place for this heinous and divisive behavior in our
   city,'' Simmons said Wednesday. "We will not rest until the culprit is
   prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.''
   Hopewell was founded in 1905 in the heart of an African-American
   neighborhood, and the congregation now has about 200 members. While
   some walls of the beige brick church survived the fire, the empty
   windows are boarded up and church leaders have said the structure will
   likely be razed. Rebuilding could take months.
   After the fire, Hopewell congregants began worshipping in a chapel at
   predominantly white First Baptist Church of Greenville. Bishop Green
   said last month the generosity of First Baptist demonstrates that
   "unlimited love'' transcends social barriers. James Nichols, senior
   pastor at First Baptist, said the Hopewell members are welcome to stay
   as long as they need a home.
   Greenville is in Washington County, a traditional Democratic stronghold
   in a solidly Republican state. In the Nov. 8 presidential election,
   Republican Donald Trump easily carried Mississippi, but Democrat
   Hillary Clinton received more than twice the vote of Trump in
   Washington County -- 11,380 for Clinton to 5,244 for Trump.