5 Church Fires=Domestic White Supremacist Terrorism.

I hope they catch the racist perp and send him to ADX in Colorado.

 

womanwhorunswithchickens • 12 days ago

Who in the hell is David A. Love?  Is he a “prominent journalist”?  Hardly.

He’s a part-time blogger and full-time social justice warrior.  He has had his writings published by a couple of mainstream media outlets.  He’s also a regular at the gutter blog The Huffington Post.  Here’s his bio from Huff:

David A. Love is a a writer and human rights activist based in Philadelphia. He is a contributor to theGrio, CNN, The Guardian and the Progressive Media Project, and is the Executive Editor of BlackCommentator.com. Love is also the former Executive Director of Witness to Innocence, a national death penalty abolition organization. He is a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, with a certificate in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford. His blog is davidalove.com.

The Daily Caller had more:

Speculation swirled that the fires were racially-motivated, especially given the proximity to Ferguson, Mo., the St. Louis suburb that was the site of massive protests last year over the police-involved shooting of Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man.

A white priest at St. Louis’ Christ Church Cathedral asserted that the arsonist had racist motives.

“Holy God, if we ever needed a wake-up call to believe that racism is alive in St. Louis — if this is not it, I don’t know what it could be,” Mike Kinman said, according to CNN.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks white supremacist groups, suggested in an article last week that the arsons were carried out by white supremacists.

The group quoted a journalist who covers African-American issues who said that the fires were “both alarming and not surprising.”

Police in St. Louis made an arrest yesterday.

Career criminal David Jackson, pictured above, was arrested.

ST. LOUIS • (Post Dispatch) – David Lopez Jackson, 35, was charged Friday afternoon with setting two in a string of seven church fires this month, but authorities say they don’t know the motive.

The charges, two counts of second-degree arson, list his address as in the 200 block of Presley Road in the Glasgow Village area of unincorporated St. Louis County. He was being held in lieu of $75,000 bail, according to court documents.

Forensic evidence linked him to the fire on Oct. 18 at Ebenezer Lutheran Church, 1011 Theobald Street; and video of his car near New Life Missionary Baptist Church, 4569 Plover Avenue, links him to the fire there on Oct. 17, police Chief Sam Dotson said. Both churches are in the city.

A container of gasoline and a Thermos bottle that smelled of gasoline were found in his car, Dotson said.

Asked about a motive, Dotson said, “We’re still trying to understand that.”

Dotson did not specifically accuse Jackson of the other church fires but said he was a suspect and suggested that further investigation might result in additional charges for additional crimes.

Although the locations of the fires in predominantly African-American neighborhoods gave rise to speculation that the motive might be race-related, Jackson is black.

He also is reported to be suspected of trying to burn a relative’s home in the 5300 block of Wilborn Drive in Jennings, a source said. Police responded to a call for an attempted arson there shortly after 4 p.m. Thursday. St. Louis County police responded to the same location for a report of a “suspicious odor” on Oct. 24.

The Jennings address, which is listed as Jackson’s home in some court records and is where he was arrested, is in the area of the first six fires — about two blocks from the closest.

Jackson’s criminal record dates to 1998, when he was arrested and charged with unlawful use of a weapon. He has also been charged with domestic assault, burglary, drug-related crimes, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.

Court records indicate that he was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, and an order of protection was sought against him to stay out of the city’s Wells Goodfellow neighborhood in 2009.

In August 2014, Jackson admitted to kicking in the back door of a home in the 5200 block of Hamilton Avenue and stealing two lanterns, according to court documents.

He most recently pleaded guilty in January of first-degree property damage and assaulting a police officer in St. Louis stemming from an incident in October 2014. Jackson admitted breaking multiple windows at the Crocodile Lounge by throwing rocks at them, according to court documents. Judge Edward Sweeney sentenced him to 120 days of “shock time” in jail, which he served from March through June, to be followed by four years of supervised probation.