The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation of a fire that heavily damaged a black church in Mississippi where someone wrote “Vote Trump” in silver spray paint.
The Tuesday night fire heavily damaged the 200-member Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Greenville, Mississippi, where Mayor Errick Simmons on Wednesday called it a “heinous, hateful, cowardly act.”
“We consider it a hate crime ... because of the political message which we believe was intended to interfere with worship and intimidate voters,” Simmons said. “This act is a direct assault on people’s right to freely worship.”
The mayor said the FBI and the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation are assisting the investigation in the Mississippi River city, where about 78 percent of the 32,100 residents are African-American.
“The FBI Jackson Division is aware of the situation in Greenville, and we are working with our local, state and federal law enforcement partners to determine if any civil rights crimes were committed,” state FBI spokesman Brett Carr said in an email.
