**LEAD STORY**
ENN 6/18/96 20:39CDT
KOSSUTH, MISSISSIPPI (ENN) - More federal law enforcment agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service, rushed into northeastern Mississippi on Tuesday to investigate the cause of two apparent copy-cat fires that destroyed two black churches on Monday night. These fires are just the latest in suspicious church blazes that have burned across the southern portion of the United States in the past 18 months.
Both churches were reported to be gutted by the flames. The two churches were only four miles and were set on fire about 17 minutes apart from one another. They were located just outside of the small rural town of Kossuth, which is located near the Tennessee border.
A failed incendiary device was found Tuesday at a nearby white church. This discovery is leading investigators to believe that it is possible that the fires were not the work of white supremacists.
The Mississippi state public safety commissioner said, "We're going to find a copy-cat situation ... someone who just couldn't help themselves. Mississippi is not burning."
Federal law enforcement authorities have stepped up efforts to investigate the fires that have damaged or destroyed 36 black churches across the South in the past 18 months. It is believed that many of the fires are racially motivated, but there has been no pattern of any coordinated arson activity. Meaning few, if any, can be tied to one another.
Steve Macko, the editor of the ENN Daily Report, is also a criminalist who has studied law enforcement issues for more than 20 years. He said on Tuesday that the one thing that is really emerging in the wave of fires is a sense of "hysteria." Macko said, "Statistics show that we have about 500 church fires every year in the United States. 36 black churches have been targeted -- all in heart of the South. But there has also been 29 white churches that have been the victim of suspicious fires in about the same amount of time. The insurance industry is saying that there has been no increase in the number of church fires. In fact, the insurance industry says that statistics have been steady and they expect about 500 church fires for this year. No dramatic change."
Macko believes that all the publicity that has been generated over the church fires is only making the situation worse and is encouraging other copy-cat arsonists. Macko said, "First, please let me say that burning ANY church is terrible. But there has been absolutely NO proof that there is any kind of organized, concerted effort behind these arsons. There are now hundreds of investigators working on this. If there was any kind of pattern linking the fires to one another ... we'd know it by now. That possiblity will still be explored by investigators -- it has to be. But what you probably really have here are a bunch of 'yahoos' in the rural South who are getting ideas from all of the news coverage this is creating."
Macko added, "Try and think like one of these 'yahoos' for a minute. All I have to do is go out between the hours of midnight and four a.m., which is when most of these fires have been started, and set an old wood-frame church on fire. Then my accomplishment can be announced by Dan Rather on the evening news that night. What's that mean? The arsonist, in this case, may be looking more for some kind of notoriety rather than have a racial motive. The first number of arsons probably were racial motivated, but I'll bet a lot of these recent ones were just an effort to gain some kind of personal recognition. This is not to say that race is not a factor, but just not the main reason for setting the fires. Without all of the publicity, the 'yahoos' probably would never had gotten the idea."
What does Macko think should be done? He suggested, "This won't happen, but the first thing that has to be done is to tone down the rhetoric. If the news media continues to maintain this level of hysteria ... there's only going to be a lot more fires."
James Cavanaugh, an ATF agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who is assigned to the arson task force, said of the latest fires, "This is getting disturbing." Cavanaugh is normally assigned as an arson investigator to the Chicago ATF field office, he added, "It's getting disgusting."
Mississippi Fires, January 1990 to March 1996. (Data from the State Fire Marshall's office)
Structural fires: 4,403
Church fires: 56 Church fires,
accidental: 26 Church fires,
undetermined cause: 8 Church fires,
arson: 22 (12 predominantly black, 10 predominantly white)
All 10 of the predominantly white church arsons remain unsolved, while 8 of the 12 predominantly black church arsons are unsolved. Of the 4 solved predominantly black church arsons, two were determined to be racially motivated, and the three teenagers charged were tried and convicted for both arsons in 1993.