HOUSTON – As federal agents probe the motivation behind the burning of an African-American church in Mississippi, Channel 2 Investigates is looking into what motivated the fires at several houses of worship in the Houston area.
Records from the Houston Fire Department show there have been 34 so-called "religious" fires since 2011. Twenty of those fires were ruled incendiary, while the remaining were ruled accidental or undetermined, Fire Department records show.
For those sharing a community with the churches, the loss goes well beyond the financial aspect.
"(There is) a lot of fear in the community -- (with people thinking), 'If I'm not safe in a place of worship, where can I be feeling safe?'" said MJ Khan, with the Islamic Society of Greater Houston. "These are the places that people come for tranquility. People come for connecting with the Lord."
Fires at houses of worship also prompt an almost instant question in the mind of the public as to whether hate led to the initial spark. This concern is what prompted Congress to pass the Church Arson Prevention Act in 1996. The act gives the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives the authority to work with local agencies on any house-of-worship fire.
"That is kind of a public reaction," said Rob Elder, the recently retired special agent in charge of the ATF’s Houston division. "Put any religion in there and it's someone who opposes that religion or opposes what that religion believes in, but you have to go out and prove that."
A recent study by the ATF found hate is rarely a motivating factor in a house-of-worship fire. The ATF studied the motivations behind 733 such fires nationwide, that were reported to the Bureau between 2011 and 2015.
View Houston Area House of Worship Fires in a full screen map
Of the 733 religious fires studied by the ATF, 331 were ruled to be incendiary or the result of bombings. The ATF determined 21 were hate crimes. In Houston, none of the church fires reported in the past five years has been ruled a hate crime.
"There is no evidence of a nationwide racial conspiracy associated with houses of worship," the report read.
In many church-arson cases, investigators find the culprit is someone with ties to the church, said Gary Orchowski, the assistant special agent in charge of the ATF’s Houston office.
File: USBDC Advisory 16-04 House of Worship for CYs 2011-2015
"What we have found is that a member or a former member of that congregation is the responsible party," Orchowski said. "Probably 1 percent of all arsons are classified as hate crimes."
The ATF’s report noted two of the biggest reasons for house-of-worship fires are burglary and vandalism. Examples of that are fires at the Fifth Ward Missionary Baptist Church on Noble Street and the Christian Outreach Center on West Little York. Both took place in 2015 and are believed to have been started by burglars.
The fire at Missionary Baptist caused $30,000 in damage to the adjacent community center. Investigators suspect a burglar tried to burn his way inside the locked building.
"We don’t know who did it, but we’d like to," Pastor Emeritus Leonard Barksdale said. "It shows a lack of respect and it scares the community."
The fire at the Christian Outreach Center caused $20,000 in damage and destroyed a clothing resale shop adjacent to the building. Again, a burglar is suspected of starting the fire.
"It hurt us, it hurt us bad," Alma Thompson said. "We're here to serve the community. I had seven people in one day say, 'Look, I can’t afford to shop anywhere.'"
The Center’s executive director, Dr. Shirley Ledet, said she hopes to rebuild the shop and would very much like to see the person responsible caught.
"To prevent it from happening to someone else -- if it’s a matter of taking someone out of society, that this is what they do," Ledet said.
As for why burglars start fires, Elder said that is probably a case of what he calls the "TV effect."
"'Hey, we left fingerprints, we left DNA, let's burn it,'" Elder said.
An example of vandalism was a fire that caused a mere $10 in damage at the Bethany Christian Church on Westheimer. Church officials said someone set some papers on fire in a bathroom.
Two of the Houston fires where arrests were made were fires that initially prompted a fear that they were hate-related.
"A lot of people had this big question mark in their mind, 'Was this a hate crime?'" Khan said.
These were fires at the Savoy Masjid mosque on South Wilcrest and the Quba Islamic Institute on FM 1959.
Darryl Ferguson, 57, was charged with setting the fire at Quba in February 2015. While he was accused of making some disparaging remarks against Muslims, investigators determined he was a homeless man looking for a warm place out of the cold. Ferguson was found guilty of arson and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Gary Nathaniel Moore, 38, is charged with starting the fire at the Savoy Masjid mosque in December 2015.
"(He) had a disagreement with the church and the way the church was viewing things," Elder said. "Not a hate crime. I mean, this was a person who attended that mosque."
Moore denies starting the fire and is awaiting trial. His attorney, Rahan Atia, declined to comment for this story.
Orchowski said solving church arsons is a top priority for the ATF, not just because a crime was committed, but because of the wider impact these fires have on the surrounding communities.
"It instills fear in the community (and) leads to finger-pointing and that divides a community," Orchowski said.
Khan agreed, saying religious leaders worked hard to calm fears in the Muslim community after the Quba and Savoy fires.
"Jumping to conclusions is one of the worst things we can do as a community," Khan said.
If you suspect a fire has been set intentionally, you are asked to call the Houston Fire Department's Arson Bureau at 832-395-8542. You can also report criminal activity anonymously to the ATF through its new partnership with Report It. Visit Report It for more information.