Hate Crime or Hoax?: Mississippi Church Burned and Spray Painted With ‘Vote Trump’

Rogelio V. Solis/AP

An all black church was spray painted with “VOTE TRUMP” and burned in Greenville, Mississippi this week. The FBI is investigating it as a potential hate crime. Democrats are calling it a case of voter intimidation. It may well be both of those things but thanks to the rampant corruption exposed during this election, can anyone really be sure yet?

The FBI has opened a civil rights investigation into the vandalizing and burning of a black church in Mississippi. “Vote Trump” had been spray-painted on a wall.

Local authorities are still searching for the person or person responsible for the fire, which they have identified as an arson.

“When firefighters arrived at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church Tuesday night, they found it in flames, and the Vote Trump slogan written in silver spray paint on the outside wall of the church,” Mark Rigsby of Mississippi Public Broadcasting reports.

“Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons calls this a hate crime — an attempt to frighten voters just days before the presidential election.”

Simmons said he saw the attack as “a strategy — an evil one.”

There is no question that there is an evil strategy at work but whose? I don’t want to sound like Barack Obama but we should wait until we know all the facts before jumping to conclusions. Especially during this chaotic election

Police are questioning a “person of interest.”

Police said they were interviewing a “person of interest” Wednesday evening in connection with a fire that heavily damaged an 111-year-old African-American church on which someone spray-painted “Vote Trump.”

Police Chief Delando Wilson, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, said the person hasn’t been charged with any crime. Chief Wilson declined to describe the person’s race or gender but said he doesn’t believe anyone else was involved in the incident Tuesday evening.

The simplest explanation for this is that some ignorant pro-Trump bigot is trying to intimidate black voters. Those people are certainly out there, but in today’s world of 24 hour news and social media, blatant thuggery is likely to hurt your cause more than help it. The insanity permeating our culture today makes one approach simple explanations with skepticism.

Given what was revealed by James O’Keefe and Project Veritas recently, we also know that there are Democrats out there who are probably not above perpetrating something like this as a hoax to smear Trump and his supporters.

Hate crime and racial hoaxes are certainly not unheard of. In 2008 a volunteer for John McCain claimed to have been mugged and mutilated by an Obama supporter. Recent years have seen many alleged hate crimes against gay people that were ultimately revealed as hoaxes. Then there was the Duke Lacrosse case. And who can forget Al Sharpton and Tawana Brawley?

I’m not arguing that this is a hoax. If I had to make a prediction I would probably come down on the side that says this is exactly what it looks like. I’m just lamenting the fact that we can’t really trust what we hear reported in the news, especially when it involves a story that provokes outrage.

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