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MIAMI -- Bishop Ivory Wilson on Sunday gazed on the shattered window of a building that serves as a church on the weekend and as a day care during the week.
There is the charred cafeteria where children would eat their snacks. A roof is now blackened with soot. It's just feet away from where students learn and play at the day care center.
"We worked hard to make this,” Wilson said. “The kids love us, the parents love us and we love them.”
Director Sandra Wilson said: “This just broke my heart, I couldn't stop crying -- couldn't stop crying.”
They say they believe the fire was deliberately set, given the vandalism spray-painted on the walls: three large red swastikas.
The owners of Little Leapers Childcare center in Fort Lauderdale say it’s a hate crime. In the last few weeks, employees say they also have been on the receiving end of a verbal threat.
Three weeks before the fire, an anonymous someone phoned “and threatened us,” said Joyce Bryant, lead schoolteacher. The caller told staff to pack their bags and get out, Bryant said.
When that call came in, the bishop and his wife contacted police. Sunday, instead of singing and praising in the auditorium, they're tallying up items that were stolen: Cameras, music equipment and flat-screen TVs used to live-stream sermons.
"Here we've got parents that won't know where to take their kids tomorrow morning," Wilson said.
They've been present in the community now for more than four years. They can’t understand why they’ve been attacked.
"We think everyone should be able to run their own business without anyone trying to run them out," Bryant said.
The bishop said vacating the building is the last thing they'll do, unwilling to let hatred win.
"We're not going to run,” he said. “Whatever game they're playing doesn't frighten me.”
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It's a Burglary not a hate crime. Whoever stole and burnt that building must have a sick mind. Why someone would paint swastikas on a building which is church in a weekend, a day care during the week? Does not make sense. Thief must have hated God, Christ, little children or the owner of the building. Thief called and threatened staff and told them to pack bags and leave. Why? There is more to the picture than we know at this time. Cops should interview the owner of the building. Many times owner themselves stage burglary and set their own place in flames for insurance purposes. Owner might be having hard time paying the mortgage for his building. We can't make judgement at this time because we don't have all facts. But it is definitely not a hate crime.
It's all part of the DemonKKKrat's bloodthirsty War Against Women, Children, Minorities, and the Poor.
You said it, Vern. Let's round up all the Christians & send them back to the Middle East where they came from.
It's all part of more Right Wing Extremists on drugs with wacky theories. Over 100 Democrats in NATIONAL OFFICE who are BLACK, almost 50 who are Jewish, over 50 who are Hispanic, almost 100 who are women, the GOP has less than 20 of ALL minorities combined in National office or State Governorships.
That alone tells you who is racist.
Actually, you sound pretty much like a racist to me...so...
Were these dyslexic neo-nazis or just confused ZZ Top fans?
NeoNazi's are simply cowards that are the bottom of the food chain intellectually and economically so they feel the need to beef up their self esteem by attacking someone different than themselves but since they are cowards they will do something as stupid as they are and run like little girls. That is why the cowards before them wore sheets because they were not proud of their opinion and can't stand when someone will stand up against them. They also need to make sure they are in a pack like animals that way they can bolster each other up since bullies need and audience and someone to strut for. You never see just one of them act like idiots they would wet themselves if they by chance would run into opposition.
Enumerate their other traits so we can nail 'em. please?
This stinks of another hoax. Come on, backwards Swastikas?? White Power groups would NEVER do that.
This report is way too vague to draw any conspiratorial conclusions from. The only thing I can discern from it so far is burglary and arson with the use of distorted swastikas as an attempt to divert attention from the true perpetrators.
symbols of hate. org. NOT random at all. The swastika is a well known calling card. Stop making excuses. I think most of you who downplay this actually know this and are trying to excuse the racist evil. SEVERAL white power groups use backwards swastikas. DO your research and stop making excuses that are easily dismissed by research on the internet. The backwards swastika is also the proper one dating back from India prior to the ascent of the German Nazi party. It has historical meaning and is used by many extremist racist groups. Some people are so pro racism they find weak excuses for it, then hope others fall for it without doing their research.
Nectarine, I am sure you are right about so many hate groups out there...deffinately...but for sure, there are alot of black groups that hate white people also...just because we are white...how can I be blamed for the evils of others? Just as you would ask all white people to judge YOU for YOUR actions and character not on the actions and character of blacks that are just bad people....I ask the same thing, do not judge me because some white people still treat minorities like crap.
This crime however, I have a really strong feeling....is not hate...or racism as you think of it.
I live in this area...I looked up the "bishop" Ivory Wilson and his wife Sandra on the Broward Clerk of Courts online search..they are two very shady characters...they have evictions almost every year for the past ten years..the Rev has a past full of felonies, they have some domestic issues, they also have two outstanding pending lawsuits they have filed for what seems like " slip and fall " one at a Winn Dixie and one at an office building ..both within a 30 day period in Nov and Dec of this past year... Hmmm, they both look well on TV....not injured....they moved pretty well when painting the wall on camera....
Just saying...this is very suspicious...and if this turns out to be a scam of some kind...the way they tried to make it appear racially motivated makes them guilty of hate crime...they tried to put the blame on another race....
And the story of two weeks prior getting a call warning them to move from the neighborhood??? FALSE...they are in a totally black neighborhood...why would anyone call them and tell them to move from the neighborhood??? I doubt the truth of that story.
the swastika was indian sign of peace (before hitler used it) and i believe and was also used on some mc coy pottery pieces from the earlier part of the last century.
If you try to snag immortality through religion you'll just end up in the Brea Tar Pits...
Some excuse bearing (expletive deleteds) are trying to say the Bishop did this to himself or it was a random act of vandalism because the swastika seems random. However the swastika is the symbol used by several radical racist skinhead groups and anyone who doesn't know that, well is pretending to not know that because the use of the swastika as a symbol of racism is almost universal.
symbolsofhate org lists all of the racist symbols and the swastika is one of the primary calling cards of neo nazi skin heads. Why we have an explosion of racism in America is anyone's guess, but it doesn't say much about the mindset of those who have outdated purity theories.
he is a bishop only because he bought the title online, you too can be a bishop.....and yes, I am saying the man and his wife did ALL of it, either this is a insurance claim scam...or self vandalsim to get the community to donate...it happens down here in SoFl ALL THE TIME...and with his history....likely.
Fascism is growing in Europe and may well be growing in South and North America. However the investigation is not completed and so whether it is a Nazi group or not is not known. The article does not really give much information on who the kids are and why they might be targeted. Guns were not used here but fire and a symbol synonymous with terror. Something is definitely fishy about the whole thing.
I have never seen a Catholic priest with corn rows much less long ones running down his back. It seems to show a vanity that I thought Catholic priests were not allowed. Is this guy a Catholic Bishop or some other Christian religion?
If you search online, there are SEVERAL online "Christain ministries" that will sell you a REVERAND, PASTOR, PHD IN THEOLOGY, or a BISHOP title to use for forming a church or performing weddings legally....all for under 200 dollars!! I suspect this is the case here...
This so called "church" is a front for a man with a REAL FELONIOUS PAST...look at the Broward Clerk of Courts online public search...its free....its enlightening.... He is not Catholic...he is most likely....of some kind of protestant/whatever denomination with purchased online credentials like I mentioned above.
I don't know who painted the swastikas, but I don't think that your typical redneck bigot is likely to understand the nuances of right facing and left facing swastikas. My money is on your ordinary neighborhood hater who used the symbol to intimidate, not necessarily as an indication of some real affiliation with the Nazi party.
I do think it's a shame that a day care has been damaged. This church was doing a public service for low income people so that they could work. Without childcare, working is really difficult for single/divorced moms living on small paychecks. How are they supposed to work if there is no safe place to leave the kids? The moron who did this probably complains about welfare and food stamps, too. So he just guaranteed that a whole bunch of women were now going to have to apply for those things since their childcare option has just been removed.
You make an interesting observation about the swastika shown. They are left sided swastikas not right sided ones and the right sided ones were the ones used by Nazis. A neo Nazi would know the difference.
a "typical redneck whatever" would not be in that part of town long enough to paint four swastika's on the side of a building....it is a TOTALLY black area...the kind of place the police need backup to enter...a white person with a spray can writing on a building there, would not go unnoticed.