{"id":36466,"date":"2024-12-28T02:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-28T08:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36466"},"modified":"2024-12-28T03:32:53","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T09:32:53","slug":"man-admits-to-setting-fires-at-predominantly-black-church-in-rhode-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=36466","title":{"rendered":"Man admits to setting fires at predominantly Black church in Rhode Island"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">PROVIDENCE, R.I. &#8212;&nbsp;A Rhode Island man has admitted to using gasoline to set several fires around the exterior of a predominantly Black church earlier this year, according to a federal plea agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Prosecutors said Kevin Colantonio set several fires around the exterior of the Shiloh Gospel Temple early Feb. 11 in North Providence after purchasing a lighter and gasoline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The building was vacant at the time and the fires were quickly extinguished by members of the North Providence Police and Fire departments, investigators said. The fires caused property damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A lawyer representing Colantonio declined to comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Without the quick action of first responders who arrived at the church at about 12:12 a.m. following reports of an individual trying to set fires, the damage to the house of worship would have been catastrophic, investigators said at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Zachary Cunha, U.S. Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, said at the time of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/rhode-island-church-fires-arrest-black-4574ae64386432fb5f1b6c0c86cbd07a\">Colantonio\u2019s arrest<\/a>&nbsp;that a search of his home turned up notebooks and writings that included phrases like \u201cburn churches down to the ground,\u201d \u201chunt them down,\u201d and \u201cgun everyone down who isn\u2019t white.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The plea agreement, which was filed in federal court last week, states that Colantonio intentionally targeted the church because of the \u201cactual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, and\/or ethnicity of the congregants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Most of the Pentecostal congregation, which has been established for about 35 years, is Black and African American, according to investigators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">No injuries were reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Colantonio faces four counts: obstruction of the free exercise of religious beliefs; malicious damage by means of fire; and two counts of assault on a federal officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">If served consecutively, Colantonio faces 56 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years, a fine of $1 million and three years of supervised release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A change of plea hearing is scheduled for Jan. 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/wireStory\/man-admits-setting-fires-predominantly-black-church-rhode-117152406\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PROVIDENCE, R.I. &#8212;&nbsp;A Rhode Island man has admitted to using gasoline to set several fires around the exterior of a predominantly Black church earlier this year, according to a federal plea agreement. Prosecutors said Kevin Colantonio set several fires around the exterior of the Shiloh Gospel Temple early Feb. 11 in North Providence after purchasing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":36467,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2223,1350],"class_list":["post-36466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-church","tag-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36466"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36468,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36466\/revisions\/36468"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}