Racist Prison Gang Member Targeted Black Church, Jews, and ‘Race Traitors’
First, he entered and ransacked the Faith in Christ Church, writing a series of threatening, racist messages in large letters across the wall of the church next to the pastor’s office. The church serves a predominately black congregation in Crane, Texas, a community of 3,000 south of Odessa.
The Aryan Brotherhood member also tagged the church with references to Ace Deuce and ABT before deliberately starting a fire in an attempt to kill a disabled African-American man who he saw passing by in a wheelchair,” the documents say.
“The arson of Faith in Christ Church was part of a series of racially motivated arson that Cantrell perpetrated that day in his attempt to gain status with the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas,” the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
The Dec. 28 fire heavily damaged four connected buildings in the church complex, but there were no injuries.
In the second arson, court documents say, Cantrell started a fire in a home elsewhere in Crane where he believed a Jewish man was living.
For his next target, Cantrell set fire to Craig’s Gym, a for-profit athletic facility elsewhere in Crane.
“Cantrell targeted Craig’s Gym because he believed the owners helped Mexican and African American patrons and because the [business] was owned by a Caucasian man married to a woman of Mexican descent,” the court documents say.