An arson investigation is underway after a church in Miami Gardens went up in flames. The pastor of the church is blaming the sinister act on a group of teenagers.
On Sunday, shortly after 9 p.m., firefighters surrounded the New Beginning Missionary Baptist Church, located at Northwest 22nd Avenue and Northwest 155th Street.
According to crews, they found a small fire and light smoke coming from the building.
Miami-Dade County Fire Rescue put out quickly and no injuries were reported.
7News cameras captured charred chairs, stained walls and damaged floors in the aftermath of the flames.
The pastor of the church, Eric Readon, tells 7News he feels violated.
“Evidentally they broke through this glass [points at front door], came in through this area,” said Readon.
According to Readon, a neighbor witnessed two men break into the church through the front door Sunday night.
“Allegedly from one of the neighbors, she was coming out for work and she looked across the street, saw two guys with all black on, ski masks on, lighting something,” he said. “She thought it was being light outside. She called the police.”
Readon said they lost thousands of dollars worth of items due to the fire. The fire damaged the walls, floor, pews, broken windows and roof. To make matters worse, equipment sustained water damage as MDFR worked to extinguish the fire.
“A lot of damage came through when the fire marshalls put out the fire with the water because all of our sound equipment, video equipment, all of our tech stuff, that stuff is destroyed,” said Readon.
With heavy rain storms and Hurricane Milton on track to hit the area, Readon is in a race against time to stop any more damage to his church.
“Some leaks in the roof so I don’t want now –,” said Readon.
“More damage,” said 7News reporter Jessica Vallejo.
“Yeah. So at least try to save some of the stuff, and the insurance just told us to save what we can,” said Readon.
He has a message for the people who were behind the possible arson.
“My hope is that they find Christ,” he said.
7News learned the property was sold back on Aug. 29 and the owner of the church was ordered to remove all persons and property from the church on Monday.
Investigators are looking into whether it was intentionally set.
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Source: wsvn
