Three Students Held in Ala. Church Fires

Pastor James Posey(2nd-R) looks over what is left of Morning Star Missonary Baptist Church with US Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents in February 2006, in Boligee, Alabama. Two college students appeared in court, just hours after they were arrested in connection with a string of arson attacks on churches in the southern state of Alabama.(AFP/File/Robert Sullivan)

Here's a big news story on the Alabama Church fires. From Yahoo News:

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Three college students were arrested Wednesday in a string of nine rural Alabama church arsons last month that allegedly were set first as "a joke" and later as a diversion, federal agents said.

Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., both 19-year-old students at Birmingham-Southern College, appeared in federal court Wednesday and were ordered held on church arson charges pending a hearing Friday.

Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20-year-old junior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, was arrested later Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Artur Davis (news, bio, voting record) said. Davis said he learned of Cloyd's arrest from the FBI. Calls to the FBI about Cloyd's arrest were not immediately returned. Cloyd previously attended Birmingham-Southern.

"While all three are entitled to have their day in court, we are very hopeful that this is the end to the fear that has been rampant in West Alabama," Davis said.

The arrests came in a probe of arsons at five Baptist churches in Bibb County south of Birmingham on Feb. 3 and four Baptist churches in west Alabama on Feb. 7. The federal Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agency had made the arsons its top priority, with scores of federal agents joining state and local officers.

Moseley admitted to the arsons after his arrest Wednesday, according to an ATF affidavit presented at the initial court appearance.

The affidavit said Moseley told agents that he, Cloyd and Debusk went to Bibb County in Cloyd's Toyota sport utility vehicle on Feb. 2 and set fire to five churches. A witness quoted Cloyd as saying Moseley did it "as a joke and it got out of hand," according to the affidavit.

Moseley also told agents the four fires in west Alabama were set "as a diversion to throw investigators off," an attempt that "obviously did not work," the affidavit said.

Now this is interesting. The three college students set five of these church fires as a joke? And then the other four church fires were set as a diversion? What were these kids thinking of? Here's a few other details to the story:

Investigators had said earlier that they were looking for two men seen in a dark SUV near a couple of the church fires. Agents have said they didn't know a motive, but there is no racial pattern. Five of the churches had white congregations and five black.

The three students arrested Wednesday are white and all either attend or previously were enrolled at Birmingham-Southern, a Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college.

Five of the churches were destroyed and four were damaged, including one in which congregants, alerted during the night that churches were afire, arrived just as the apparent arsonists were leaving. That fire, quickly put out, had been set in the sanctuary near the altar — a pattern in the other church arsons in Bibb County and west Alabama.

Jim Parker, pastor of Ashby Baptist Church at Brierfield, a Bibb County church destroyed in the Feb. 3 arson, said the congregation has been apprehensive about whether the arsonists had some "political or religious agenda."

"I want to find out the motivation of these young men. Young folks get some crazy ideas," he said.

He said he had spoken to federal agents and understood the suspects were promising students from good families.

Well, the SUV clue points to Cloyd's Toyota SUV--although the article doesn't say what color Cloyd's Toyota SUV is. All three young men are white, but there doesn't seem to be much of a racial pattern here. All three young men come from "good families," whatever the definition of a "good family" is. Two of the men--Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk Jr., are students at Birmingham-Southern College, while Cloyd previously attended Birmingham-Southern. And it appears that Birmingham-Southern is a Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college. I wonder what the curriculum is at Birmingham-Southern? And specifically, I'm wondering how much religious doctrinaire was drilled into these young men at Birmingham-Southern--such as Bible reading classes, required church attendance, religious activities and such. I'm also wondering what Pastor Jim Parker's definition of a "good family" is, specifically does it mean that all three men grew up within a more religious family--perhaps even an evangelical family? The connection in this case has to somehow do with religion. You don't set fire to nine Baptist churches without some reason--even if it was a joke.

So I still have a lot of questions regarding this story. Stay tuned.