Three historic black churches have burned down in a local Louisiana community, and authorities are neither ruling out arson nor that the three fires are related to one another.
“But just as we haven’t connected the three in St. Landry, we haven’t connected the one in Caddo,” said Ashley Rodrigue, a spokeswoman for the Louisiana Office of State Fire Marshal, on Friday.
Local authorities in St. Landry Parish have been coordinating with the FBI over the fires, which took place over the last few weeks. State Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning declined to get into specific details over the ongoing investigation at a press conference on Thursday, but did not rule out the possibility of arson or that the fires are a part of a larger plan to affect the community.
“There is clearly something happening in this community,” Browning said in the statement. “That is why it is imperative that the citizens of this community be part of our effort to figure out what it is.”
“If you’re going to turn to a house of God, turn to it for resurrection.”
St. Mary Baptist Church in the predominantly African American community of Port Barre was the first church fire, on March 26. Then exactly a week later, the Greater Union Baptist Church also caught fire, just 8 miles away from St. Mary. A third, Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas, was burnt down Thursday, also in the parish, resulting in the wider investigation involving federal authorities.
Local pastors have been urging churchgoers to keep attending scheduled services, saying that these are the times when the community has to come together even stronger.
The Rev. Harry Richard of Greater Union Baptist Church told New Orleans News that no one in the community should panic or overreact without knowing the full facts.
“I don’t know who’s doing it or why they’re doing it, but I don’t want to be the one to inject race into it,” he said.
