Investigators are looking for a California woman who tried to commit arson against Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, a historic predominately Black church.
The incident occurred on August 14 and was filmed by surveillance cameras outside of the church, KPIX reported.
Lead Pastor Kevin Craddock II didn’t realize anything was wrong until he saw strange red marks on the church’s windows. The marks prompted him to watch the security camera footage, which showed an unidentified woman trying to light the church on fire.
In the seven-minute-long video, the woman paces back and forth in front of the church. She threw bricks at the windows and poured lighter fluid in the grass. She tried to start the blaze with a lighter, and a couple of sparks flew, but there was no fire.
“By the grace of God, the lighter wouldn’t take, it wouldn’t come on full force, and nothing was being lit up,” Craddock told KPIX.
This is the second predominately Black church to be targeted by an arsonist in about a year. In July 2020, a wall at the Way Christian Center was burned by a fire.
Berkeley City Councilmember Ben Bartlett said he was deeply affected by the footage and believes race is a factor in the Ebenezer.
“Watching the video, I feel it deeply. It’s an attack on all of us, and going back in history, the fair housing act came from this neighborhood, and when they were passing it, people threw bricks through their windows,” Bartlett said.
“There is a temptation to separate this from racism, to focus on the mental illness and not the racism, but here’s the thing, racism is mental illness,” Bartlett added.
Craddock pointed to the history of violent attacks against Black churches.
“There’s no way you don’t know what you’re doing. You know this is an African American church, and you know what lighting a fire to an African American church has been through the history,” the pastor said.
The suspected arsonist remains at large. Craddock doesn’t harbor hard feelings.
“We definitely need to know who this young lady is,” he told KRON4. “We want to help her, and I believe that you can live in harmony when they are in harmony.”
