March 8, 2006
TARGETS OF OPPORTUNITY:
3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires (RICK LYMAN, 3/08/06, NY Times)
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs south of Birmingham, two of them 19 and one 20, were arrested today in the burning of nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month that federal officials say was a prank that spun out of control. [...]The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."
Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists.
There's even less to church burning than to the ports deal. Posted by Orrin Judd at March 8, 2006 6:42 PM
What? Doesn't that guy remember how well profiling did with the D.C. Snipers?
Posted by: Lou Gots at March 8, 2006 7:59 PMIt is hard to believe that middle class kids would think burning a church, or anything else, is a prank. I wonder if any of them had a history of Ritalin?
We had a very similar happening here in a middle class town in central Florida. A bunch of ordinary (white) boys on the high school wrestling team who had never been in trouble before were caught after they committed a series of burglaries of their neighbors homes.
They ruined their own lives and made their family's lives miserable all for no reason that they could articulate.
What was the race of these "middle class" kids? Since the article didn't say, are we to assume they were black? If so, and they burned 4 white churches, why is it not a race motivated crime?
Posted by: Bob at March 9, 2006 10:21 AM"There's even less to church burning than to the ports deal."
Nonsense. Wait until somebody has the bright idea of looking at the hard drive on those kids's computers. My guess is that infidel.org and other Left Wing Loser anti-Christian hate sites had a lot to do with it. The boys probably figured they were doing their country a service. Like the service the sloppy sentimentalists are doing our country by poo-pooing the threat by radical Islam due to arrive at a port near you.
Posted by: NC3 at March 9, 2006 11:09 AMPeople burn churches because it's a way of thumbing their noses at God, they have poor security and they tend to be old and wooden so they burn well. But your paranoia is at least consistent.
Posted by: oj at March 9, 2006 11:18 AMthey were white and attending a christian college.
Posted by: toe at March 9, 2006 12:54 PMtoe: Thanks. Usually when an article doesn't mention race in this type of situation, it means that the race is black which doesn't match PC journalism.
Posted by: Bob at March 9, 2006 2:34 PMTrackBack
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Three college students, including two aspiring actors known around campus as pranksters, were arrest [Read More]