Recently, police arrested a sheriff's son who was suspect in the burning of three predominantly black churches in Louisiana. Holden Matthews, a 21 year old suspect for the burning of the churches, was charged with three counts of arson of a religious building. The suspect was linked to the attacks through a genre of music called "black metal," which is a music genre that has been associated with accounts of church arson in places in Europe such as Norway. Matthews' social media had pictures of him with his guitar stating he was going to start a black metal band called Vodka Vultures. Since the attacks happened so close to each other, one on the 26th of March and the other two on April 2nd and 4th, authorities knew the arsons had to be linked with each other. Although these terrible acts have hurt the community, they are still trying to rebuild the churches and not have this attack stop their faith.
This article was written on April 11, 2019 by Sasha Ingber. Before reading this article I had heard about the suspect and what had happened in these attacks. The article gives me a negative thought about not only the suspect, but the fact that these terrible people really can be influenced by anything to commit these terrible acts. We can relate this event to the bombing on the churches in Birmingham, Alabama. In these acts black churches were also targeted and people were killed as well as communities destroyed. This attack on these black churches in 2019 is very alarming because it shows a return to a very racist past in the South, a return to a place we shouldn't be in.
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/11/712173532/authorities-arrest-suspect-linked-to-3-burned-black-churches-in-louisiana
To make people scared for their lives in such a sacred space which has been built to honor safety and protection for people, is a totally reprehensible act that deserves punishment at the highest extent of the law. What a tragedy.
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