CNN: Burning Churches in Alabama

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a joke?


AP

"An ATF affidavit said Moseley told agents on Wednesday that he, Cloyd and Debusk went to Bibb County in Cloyd's Toyota sport utility vehicle on Feb. 2 and set fire to five churches. A witness quoted Cloyd as saying Moseley did it "as a joke and it got out of hand," according to the affidavit.

Moseley also told agents the four church fires in west Alabama were set "as a diversion to throw investigators off," an attempt that "obviously did not work," the affidavit said.

The two students arrested Wednesday are white and their college is a Methodist-affiliated liberal arts college."
 
Funny sense of humor these two have.

My guess is that they will realize that the first rationalization didn't work, so they will make up another.
 
They have gotten the people who did this. I'm a bit sketchy on the information, but they are two college students who thought the whole thing was just plain fun. Some of the things people will do for fun are just plain sick if you ask me.
 
MissVelvetDress_75 said:
:tsk: Those boys look like they came from good middle class familes

Those often are the scary ones.
 
nbcrusader said:


But they targeted Christians. Can that not be hate?

Hm, I guess it could be considered hate because yes, they were targeting Christians. I know how I'd feel if they'd been targeting Catholic Churches and they had burned my church. We had a fire at our church in 2001 when the cross on top of the building got struck by lightning and we had to have a completely new building built, so I know the feeling of having something like this happen to your church. It wasn't hate, though, it was an "act of God".
 
nbcrusader said:


But they targeted Christians. Can that not be hate?

No, I guess it's not hate; it's just their particular denomination of Satanism.

From THE BIRMINGHAM NEWS via www.al.com:

Friends said (DeBusk) and Ben Moseley were Satanists, which DeBusk told friends was "not about worshipping the devil, but about the pursuit of knowledge," according to Burgess...Burgess said he and DeBusk discussed religion loosely, debating whether pets go to heaven and what heaven looks like. "He told me I was one of the more intelligent Christians he's talked to," Burgess said. "Coming from a Satanist, I didn't know quite how to interpret that."

Ian Cunningham, a sophomore who lived in the same dorm as DeBusk, recalled returning from the campus chapel recently to snide remarks about being saved from DeBusk and Moseley. "He would constantly mock me," Cunningham said of DeBusk.


After he got a speeding ticket - 85 mph in a 70 zone - his Web site musings grew cryptically violent. In a posting to Moseley last summer as the two planned a road trip, he wrote, "Let us defy the very morals of society instilled upon us by our parents, our relatives and of course Jesus."

One of them was my wife's student when she taught 6th grade. All 3 of them have attended my collegiate alma mater.

~U2Alabama
 
nbcrusader said:


But they targeted Christians. Can that not be hate?
No, it cannot. It is not a hate crime if we oppose the principle of hate crime legislation in every form - not just when it's protecting minorities.
 
If they're pyromaniacs they would be indiscriminate about what they set fire to, I would think. The Satanist thing would appear to fit the church pattern


people.com

As more is learned about the three young men charged with setting a string of fires to nine Baptist churches across Alabama, the more bewildered those people close to the suspects have become.

Two of the suspects, Benjamin Nathan Moseley and Russell Lee DeBusk Jr., both 19, are students at Birmingham-Southern College, while the third suspect, Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, attends the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Dr. David Pollick, president of Birmingham-Southern, said in a statement both men had been suspended and were barred from campus, the Associated Press reports. Pollick called the attacks "mindless cruelty."

"This is not Birmingham-Southern," Pollick said, WSFA-TV reports in Alabama. "It is not the character of the students who are here. It shocked me."

Fellow students appeared equally confused by the charges against the men, particularly Moseley and DeBusk, who were promising amateur actors and pranksters.

"In the theater, you're a very tight-knit community and they were a part of that community," said Birmingham-Southern student Martin Landry. "We were very good friends."

Moseley and DeBusk had both performed in campus plays as well as a documentary film. Their arrest came on the day when both were featured in the campus newspaper for their acting efforts.

Cloyd, the third suspect, was formerly a student at Birmingham-Southern but transferred last year to UAB.

Cloyd's father, a physician, told authorities that his son admitted to being present when the fires were set. "He knew who did it and he was there," Michael Cloyd said in an affidavit, AP reports.

The suspects, who are currently in jail, have been charged with conspiracy and setting fire to a single church, Ashby Baptist. Each charge carries a minimum sentence of five years, and more charges are possible.
 
The little goobs have been sentenced. Personally, I think their prison sentences are too short; I would ave doubled their terms. The miliaon-dolalr retributions are prbably the harshest part. Maybe the can get "The Illuminati" to raise funds for them.

Judge begins handing down sentences for church burnings
Posted by Birmingham News staff April 09, 2007 15:34PM
A federal judge this afternoon began handing down prison sentences for three former college students who burned rural churches.

U.S. District Judge David Proctor sentenced Matthew Cloyd and Benjamin Moseley to eight years and one month in prison and ordered they pay a total of $3.1 million in restitution.

Russell DeBusk was sentenced to seven years and ordered to participate in the restitution.

All will get credit for serving one year in the Shelby County Jail.

The three pleaded guilty in December to conspiracy and arson charges in the fires set Feb. 2 and Feb. 7, 2006.

On Thursday, the three will appear in a closed hearing in Bibb County Circuit Court as they seek youthful offender status for state arson charges there. If granted, their case would be sealed and they would serve no more than three years in state prison.

They also face arson charges in Sumter, Greene and Pickens counties.

Val Walton


~U2Alabama
 
I'm not quite seeing how that adds up. Do you mean it can't happen outside of prison? Is that something or the only thing you hope to see achieved from this? Is its' being in line with arson charges not of importance?
 
U2Bama said:
It would have given them more time to regret what they did.

~U2Alabama

I subscribe to the view that there's a point in time after which a prison sentence becomes counter productive, leads to more adaptation difficulties after release and subsequently could lead to more crime. Without trivialising what these people have done, I think 8 years in prison (you could probably put me in a straightjacket after 8 weeks) and this, combined with the fact that these people will probably be in debt for the rest of their lives, will ensure that they're going to regret what they did for a long time.
 
Cloyd and Moseley burned 9 years and have received 8-year prison sentences; DeBusk participated in 7 of the arsons and received a7-year sentence. Although the prosecutors are satisfied with the sentences as they are in line with guidelines, I think it's disappointing that it breaks down to less than a year per church for Cloyd and Moseley. The good news is that they still face state charges, for arson and burglary, but unfortunately they will not be charged with spotlighting deer (illegal), hunting and shooting deer at night in February (out of season in Alabama), and drunk driving.

These were not wealthy, suburban megachurches that the goons felt the need to destroy; they were simple, rural churches that, despite their simplicity, were welcome homes to their congregants. They destroyed them for their own personal, selfish thrills; not for food, survival or even for money, and they knew better. I'm not for sending them to prison to improve their well-being as much as I am for punishing them adequately.

~U2Alabama
 
U2Bama said:
Cloyd and Moseley burned 9 years and have received 8-year prison sentences; DeBusk participated in 7 of the arsons and received a7-year sentence. Although the prosecutors are satisfied with the sentences as they are in line with guidelines, I think it's disappointing that it breaks down to less than a year per church for Cloyd and Moseley. The good news is that they still face state charges, for arson and burglary, but unfortunately they will not be charged with spotlighting deer (illegal), hunting and shooting deer at night in February (out of season in Alabama), and drunk driving.

These were not wealthy, suburban megachurches that the goons felt the need to destroy; they were simple, rural churches that, despite their simplicity, were welcome homes to their congregants. They destroyed them for their own personal, selfish thrills; not for food, survival or even for money, and they knew better. I'm not for sending them to prison to improve their well-being as much as I am for punishing them adequately.

~U2Alabama

How is it different from burning a home?
 
Where have I made any comparison between sentencing standards for church arsonists as opposed to house arsonists? I think they should both be harsh; while the destruction of a house may not harm as many people as the burning of a church, it definitely affects the resident(s) more severely than a church burning would affect its congregants, simply because the house is where the resident(s) eat, sleep and live. I will admit that I do not know the federal sentincing guildelines for arson, be it houses, churches, business, etc. But less than one year per church seems very light. If they had only burned one church, would they have only been sentenced to one year? That does not seem sufficient.

I did read where the minimum sentence for Cloyd and Moseley would have been 7 years, and it was this long because two firefighters were injured in their response to one of the fires. So when you think about it, they only got the minimum sentence plus one year; seems pretty light for what, 9 churches?

Also, the Bibb County plea hearing was today; their sentence for that case was 15 years but they will only have to serve 2 years. However, the additional 2 years will be served after the federal terms.

~U2Alabama
 
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