(CBN News) – The FBI, the ATF, and Louisiana state authorities are investigating a string of three “suspicious” fires at three historic African American church buildings in Louisiana’s St. Landry Parish. The first fire occurred on March 26 at the St. Mary Baptist Church in Port Barre, and the second happened Tuesday when the Greater Union Baptist Church in Opelousas caught fire. Mount Pleasant Baptist Church in Opelousas
caught fire on Thursday. All three buildings, home to African American congregations, are located in rural areas and the fires happened at night. They were uninhabited at the time the fires occurred and no injuries were reported. During a news conference Thursday, Fire Marshal H. “Butch” Browning said it wasn’t clear whether the three fires are connected and he declined to get into specifics of what the investigation had yielded so far but described the blazes as “suspicious.” READ MORE
