Arson Probe’s Pace, Methods Upset Clergy

Ministers of predominantly black churches that have been damaged or destroyed in a string of arson attacks told Atty. Gen. Janet Reno on Sunday of their anger and frustration with the pace of the investigation and the attitude of some of the law enforcement agents working on the cases.

After the meeting with Reno and other top Justice Department officials, the Rev. Mac Charles Jones of the National Council of Churches complained that investigators have interrogated pastors and church members as if they were responsible for the fires.

“The message from the pastors is that the frustration level is very high--people are becoming less and less patient,” said the Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, a New York-based ecumenical group that organized the ministers’ trip to Washington and a two-day series of events to draw national attention to the 18-month-old series of church burnings.

Investigators have used polygraph tests, demanded church financial records and conducted widespread questioning of church members, according to the council.

The administration insists that such tactics are essential.

“Our responsibility is to solve these crimes, and we are determined to do that,” Deval L. Patrick, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said on CNN’s “Late Edition.” “That includes whatever investigative tools are at our disposal and then some.”

Clinton administration officials insisted that they are working hard on investigating the more than 30 unsolved burnings. “We are absolutely, positively and to our soul committed to solving these crimes,” Patrick said at a news conference outside the Justice Department.

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The latest fire occurred Thursday in Charlotte, N.C., when a 93-year-old building on the grounds of the Matthews-Murkland Presbyterian Church burned.

Reno, who did not appear at the news conference, said in a prepared statement: “Acts of violence against the spiritual centers of our communities must be stopped. We will devote whatever resources are necessary to solve these crimes.”

Patrick acknowledged the complaints of the ministers in diplomatic language. The ministers “expressed to us a very deep concern about the vigor” of the investigation, he said.

None of the ministers whose churches have burned would talk with reporters after the brief news conference, which was conducted in a pouring rain. “We have been instructed to make no statements at this time,” one said.

The ministers will meet today with Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which has scores of agents working on the investigation, is part of the Treasury Department.

Reno told the ministers that the administration has “formalized” its church arson task force, which will be led by top officials from the Treasury and Justice departments and will include FBI Director Louis J. Freeh and ATF Director John McGaw.

The inquiry is now the Justice Department’s biggest civil rights investigation and one of its largest criminal inquiries. More than 200 federal agents from the FBI and the ATF, as well as state and local investigators, have been working on the cases for months.

There were 16 church burnings last year and there have been 34 this year at black churches in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Tennessee has had eight incidents, and South Carolina has had five.

Arrests have been made in 11 fires, and two were classified as accidents.

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Many of the pastors and the leaders of the National Council of Churches, which has 33 denominations as members, suspect that the burnings are the work of white supremacist groups.

“These are not isolated incidents but rather domestic terrorism and intimidation of whole communities,” said Jones, minister of St. Stephen’s Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo.

Many of the more than 30 ministers who met with the attorney general Sunday have received death threats, said Carol Fouke, a spokeswoman for the council.

The National Council of Churches plans to announce today a campaign to provide $1 million to help rebuild the damaged churches.