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- <text id=91TT2611>
- <title>
- Nov. 25, 1991: American Notes:Crime
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Nov. 25, 1991 10 Ways to Cure The Health Care Mess
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 51
- American Notes
- CRIME
- Fire in the Sanctuary
- </hdr><body>
- <p> Blackened rubble was all that remained last week of the St.
- Augustine Catholic Church in Gainesville, Fla. It was the
- latest casualty in a wave of suspicious fires that have claimed
- 50 churches in Florida since April 1990, seven in Gainesville
- alone. Since most of the blazes have been explosive
- conflagrations that roared up in the middle of the night, some
- congregations have taken to sleeping in their sanctuaries to
- protect them.
- </p>
- <p> There has been little apparent pattern to the fires, which
- have struck at a variety of denominations and at churches with
- both black and white congregations. A few days after the
- Gainesville fire, Florida police arrested an ex-convict from
- Chattanooga, Tenn., on charges of loitering in the area, but say
- he is only one of many suspects. State and federal investigators
- believe that while many of the fires are the work of just one
- or two arsonists, others may be copycat crimes. In that case,
- Florida churchgoers may have to bed down in the pews for some
- time.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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