Deer Hunting + Drinking + Alabama = Church Burnings!

[Ian David]

Deer Hunting + Drinking + Alabama = Church Burnings!
December 21st, 2006 by Jimmy

It seems that if you enjoy hunting and swilling brews in Alabama the next logical step is to go out and burn some predominantly African American Baptist churches. Three former Birmingham-Southern University students seemed to think so anyway…


BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (KROTV Seattle) — Three former college students pleaded guilty on Wednesday to federal arson charges in the burning of nine rural Alabama churches last February.

Matthew Cloyd, Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee Debusk entered the guilty pleas as they stood before a federal judge in Birmingham, who said they each face a minimum seven-year sentence.

The three are also charged with state crimes, and county prosecutors insist that any plea deal include state prison time after the men finish their federal sentences.

All the churches have either rebuilt or are in the process after receiving an outpouring of donations, including more than $350,000 raised by Birmingham-Southern College, where the three men were students.

Isolated incident? Deranged idiots in a drunken stupor? White racists on Coors Light? One regret. The boys (surely not men) pleaded guilty and the trial that would have revealed these idiots for what they truly are and the reasons for doing this idiocy will never see the light of day. Off to the hooskow boys. You’re going to go over real well with the prison skin heads. But very very poorly with the African American inmates. You might as well have the guards sew targets on your orange jump suits.

More:
http://www.liberalavenger.com/2006/12/21/deer-hunting-drinking-alabama-church-burnings/

[Catherine Vincent]

1. Thanks for the link.

I never understand why racist aholes would want to burn down a church. Okay, besides themselves, they are only damaging a building. It can be re-built. Do they think they'll harm someone's faith when in fact, it will make them stronger?

[EST]

2. I am so pleased these right wing nut jobs are heading

for the klink. I was afraid the deafening silence we were hearing meant it had been swept under the rug, since their families are rich republican fundies.

I shall never forgive Chris Matthews for suggesting that the arsonists, when they were still undiscovered, were either frustrated libruls or gays. grrrrrr

[seabeyond]

3. my thought. three middle or more class white families.

parents spent 18 years raising the children with their morals and ethics. looking to the future for their children. going to school. and here at this time in their life faced with the knowledge that in their raising they taught their children such hate. i wonder how open their bigotry was in their families. how much they held onto it, allowing their boys to hate so much to be able to do this against blacks. and now they can sit in reflection of what they created by their own beliefs. i would love to see if there was any enlightenent in these families, or taking responsibility teaching their children to hate a race.

[TX-RAT]

4. Let me get this right

If you deer hunt, like beer and you live in Alabama your a Church Burner?

That's one heck of a stretch.

[DixieBlue]

5. As a beer drinking Alabamian who happens to like

good deer summer sausage, let me just state for the record we are not all church burning bigots.

My guess is that any racism or bigotry in the family was probably pretty openly sprinkled about. And that lifetime of sprinkling coupled with the beer led to the fires ... not necessarily the fact the boys were Alabamians. I've lived all over the place and there's bigotry all over. Just seems like when something bad in the south happens everyone decides to throw around the usual stereotypes.

Off to find me a beer and some deer.

[TX-RAT]

6. Happy hunting, save the beer for after the hunt.

[jody]

7. “Trio admit burning churches” Birmingham News

Trio admit burning churches

Three former college students face seven to eight years in federal prison after admitting Wednesday they participated in a spree of burning churches.

Wearing orange jail jumpsuits and leg irons, Matthew Cloyd, Russell Lee Debusk and Benjamin Nathan Moseley stood before a federal judge to enter guilty pleas to conspiracy and arson charges in the fires set Feb. 2 and Feb. 7.

At the time of the arsons, DeBusk and Moseley were theater students at Birmingham-Southern College.

Cloyd attended the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he was a junior pre-med student.

[cwydro]

8. Well, they spread their stupidity around

because not all the churches were African American.

I do hope they get the book thrown at them.

[Ganja Ninja]

10. Some people are criminals and need to be locked up and ...

some people are just too stupid to be allowed to run free in society. These guys fall into the latter category.

[Wcross]

9. Deranged idiots in a drunken stupor? Apparently.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1172241,00.html

--accusing them of setting ablaze nine churches, home to both black and white congregations, in the rural counties around Birmingham in February.

"He said he was interested in Satanism," says Jeremy Burgess, 19, DeBusk's dormitory roommate. But one "demon hunting" trip amounted to little more than an excuse to drink in the woods. According to court documents, Cloyd, DeBusk and Moseley set the first five fires as a joke after a night of drinking and shooting at deer, then torched four more churches 100 miles away to throw police off their trail.


I don't think it was about the race of the congregations that worshiped in the churches burned.

[Javaman]

11. We do we excuse racist bigoted behavior as being just stupid...

I'm sorry but stupid behavior generally means a person didn't think something through.

These guys knew exactly what they were doing.

Their actions weren't stupid, they were racially motivated based on hate and ignorance.

Stupidity, to me, in this case is absolutely no excuse.