A Mississippi church at the center of a lawsuit over a stay-at-home order burned to the ground and investigators believe it was arson.
“Bet you stay home now you hypokrits (sic),” read a message spray painted on the parking lot of the First Pentecostal Church in Holly Springs.
Last April the church filed a lawsuit against city leaders in Holly Springs claiming that police officers disrupted a Wednesday night Bible study as well as the church’s Easter Sunday service.
The Marshall County Sheriff’s Office told television station WREG they found evidence to suggest someone intentionally set the blaze, but wouldn’t go into detail.
“We’ve collected evidence and stuff we are trying to get identified through several different companies and stuff to perhaps give us some leads and lead us in a direction we can find the person or persons responsible for this fire,” said Major Kelly McMillen.
Stephen Crampton, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, was disturbed to hear that the fire was being treated as arson.
“To hear that the authorities are treating this as arson is distressing and we pray that the perpetrators of this terrible event will be brought to justice,” he said in a Facebook statement. “Our most sincere prayers are with the people of this church and their pastor. They have been grieving the inability to gather as a congregation since the COVID-19 pandemic stay home orders forced the closure of their church home and now they must grieve the loss of this spiritual home, their place of worship.”
This is a developing story.
