ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, June 11, 1996 TAG: 9606110054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
PRESIDENT CLINTON, Gov. George Allen, Attorney General Jim Gilmore and other government and civil rights leaders vow to oppose attacks on black churches.
A 13-year-old white girl was charged with burning a sanctuary in North Carolina and three men were questioned Monday about two weekend blazes in Texas as federal investigators looked for evidence of a racist conspiracy in more than 30 fires at Southern black churches.
The White House said President Clinton will go to Greeleyville, S.C., on Wednesday to visit the site of Mount Zion AME Church, which was burned last June by an arsonist. The minister, the Rev. Terrence Mackey, attended Clinton's radio address Saturday.
Speaking Monday in San Diego, Clinton urged all Americans to put aside racial differences and treat each other equally, ``just as we are before God almighty.''
Virginia Attorney General Jim Gilmore said Monday that attorneys general from 12 other Southern states unanimously approved his proposal to join forces to investigate the fires.
Gilmore asked for the regional probe at a National Associations of Attorneys General meeting in St. Louis, where he was elected chairman of the Southern attorneys general. He said state and local police and sheriffs' offices will be involved.
Gov. George Allen said that while black church fires have not been as big a problem in Virginia as in some other states, ``If there's anything we can do to help, we should do it.''
Meanwhile, officials of some burned churches complained they were harassed and intimidated by federal investigators who cast suspicion on the congregations.
Rose Johnson, executive director for the Center for Democratic Renewal, said her group will file a harassment and intimidation complaint against several FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents.
The center, a nonprofit group that researches racism, complained in a report that investigators of a fire at a Knoxville, Tenn., church had ``polygraphed pastors, fingerprinted church members, shown up unannounced at job sites and homes, and implied that church members burned their own church.''
Though authorities said the teen-age girl in North Carolina was not a suspect in any of the other fires, they said a conspiracy had not been ruled out. ``Given the pattern, we would be nuts not to be looking at a larger conspiracy as one of the possible explanations of what's going on,'' James Johnson, assistant treasury secretary for enforcement, said in Washington.
``We are not in a position to say, one way or the other, whether or not there was an overarching conspiracy. But there's clearly a very troubling pattern, and we are clearly determined to get to the bottom of it.''
The ATF has been investigating 30 church fires since January 1995 and has declared five of those cases closed with arrests. The two fires in Texas would bring the total to 32.
Five people have been arrested in the earlier fires. Investigators have said they have no evidence of a national racist conspiracy.
The fire in which the girl is accused destroyed a 93-year-old wooden sanctuary at Matthews Murkland Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., late Thursday. The sanctuary was used to store old pews; the congregation worshiped at a building nearby.
She was charged as a juvenile and held for an as-yet unscheduled hearing. Authorities said the law prevented them from giving details about her. ``This is a very troubled 13-year-old,'' said Larry Snider, deputy chief of police in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C.
Police spokesman Keith Bridges said there was no evidence the fire was racially motivated.
NBC Nightly News, quoting federal officials it did not identify, said the girl was suspected of being part of a devil-worshiping cult. Local authorities refused to comment on the report, but Capt. D.L Skipper of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said investigators who specialize in racial and cult activity were looking into the case.
NAACP Chairwoman Myrlie Evers-Williams, who visited the scene of the fire Sunday, said it was too early to rule out any motive. ``I can't say the congregation should be able to sleep better tonight,'' she said after the arrest. ``There are still too many questions about this case and others across the country.''
As she spoke, authorities were investigating fires at two churches in Greenville, Texas, about 40 miles northeast of Dallas. The New Light House of Prayer was heavily damaged late Sunday. Another fire did moderate damage to the Church of the Living God a mile away.
Two white men and a Hispanic man, charged with alcohol-related crimes, were questioned about both fires, although the second was reported hours after their arrest.Fire Chief Robert Wood called the fires ``acts of local vandalism.''
Authorities would not say whether they thought the fires were racially motivated. But Greenville officials said ``KKK'' was spray-painted on a wall at a car wash that day and carved into golf greens.
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP ATF agents Monday study the New Lighthouse ofby CNBPrayer, one of two Greenville, Texas, churches burned Sunday night.
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