Three crosses were set on fire outside the Sylmar Christian Fellowship Church early Thursday morning.
The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a call about the fire around 4:40 a.m. When fire crews arrived, they found three burned crosses sitting in a bed of white rocks in front of the church.
“The fire was already self-extinguished, or possibly extinguished by a passerby,” LAFD Captain Stephen Phillips told KNX News’ Jon Baird.
Phillips said an accelerant was most likely used to set the crosses ablaze.
The LAFD, LAPD, FBI, and ATF were at the scene Thursday to investigate the arson, which they say may have been a hate crime. The church’s membership is predominantly Black.
“I’d like to think that it was a random moment in time when someone had an opportunity to do something, versus, ‘let’s do this again next week somewhere else and graduate to something bigger, bigger, bigger,’” pastor Pierre Howard said.
Terri Villa-McDowell, L.A. vs. Hate program coordinator for the L.A. County Commission on Human Relations, says she’s seen a steady rise in hate crimes since 2019.
“Whether it is the LGBTQIA community that we saw at the end of the school year, or the neo-Nazism incidents that we hear about happening in some parts of the county, it has moved to a place of empowered either bullying or straight-out hate,” she said. “It has become more organized and it must be addressed.”
Investigators so far haven’t found any witnesses or security video footage of the crime, and there are currently no suspects.
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