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The Town That Won't Stop Burning
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Matt Rourke / AP Photo
In other words, Coatesville, a mostly black town surrounded by a county that’s 90 percent white, is regarded by its surrounding towns as an embarrassment at best and, at worst, a dangerous source of crime that leaks beyond its borders. The feedback sections of online reports about Coatesville’s arsons are filled with commenters from surrounding towns disparaging Coatesville’s residents, often in racist terms. And some of the people arrested for the Coatesville fires live in these surrounding towns—in February, Roger Leon Barlow, a white teenager from Downingtown, seven miles away, was charged with setting nine Coatesville fires. (He confessed before recanting his confession.)
In fact, although the arsonists have targeted Coatesville’s white and black houses in roughly equal numbers, so far all the arrested arson suspects—seven since August 2008—are white. Speaking inside Coatesville’s A Step Above barbershop, local barber Mark Kennedy says there’s a sense that the arsonists are “trying to burn the blacks out of Coatesville.” A kind of gallows humor has found its way into the city’s black community. “Black people don’t have time to run around setting people houses on fire,” a woman on Stode Avenue says with a laugh. “We just don’t fit the profile of people who do that.”
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AP Photo
“People just can't get beyond wanting to blame and punish the people of Coatesville,” observes one online commenter on a story about the arsons in Chester County’s Daily Local News. “They have to believe that the arsonist(s) is from the city, no matter what the facts are, the scenarios, the profiles, or the patterns. It is beyond them to even fathom that there would be hate groups in affluent Chester County.”
Not helping matters is the fact that the latest suspect, Robert Tracey, Jr., arrested two months ago, is not only white, but was also Coatesville’s assistant fire chief.
The most recent confirmed arson was in March, but there have been other suspicious fires since, the most recent of which destroyed the home of Coatesville High School’s principal last week. (It’s currently under investigation.) And few are getting their hopes up that the plague of arsons is in the past. “We don’t think it’s over,” says Nasiir Ali, another barber at A Step Above. “I heard fire engines yesterday. I got chills.”
Back on his porch, Blue and the three girls discuss the possibility of Tracey’s involvement.
“I don’t care if you work for the fire department,” Blue says. “I’ll hunt you down. And when I find you? It will be something.” Marquia Joseph, 19, sitting next to him, shakes her head. “It’s like everybody out for they selves out here.”
Gregory Gilderman is senior producer at The Daily Beast and a former writer for Philadelphia magazine.
Jeff Deeney is a freelance writer and social worker from Philadelphia. He blogs about his experiences on the frontlines of urban poverty at Phawker.com.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jeff Deeney is a social worker and freelance writer from Philadelphia. He previously wrote about his experience scoring OxyContin on Pill Hill for the Philadelphia City Paper
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Jeff Deeney is a social worker and freelance writer from Philadelphia. He previously wrote about his experience scoring OxyContin on Pill Hill for the Philadelphia City Paper
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Jeff Deeney is a social worker and freelance writer from Philadelphia. He previously wrote about his experience scoring OxyContin on Pill Hill for the Philadelphia City Paper
Sounds like you need to follow the money on this one...not the in insurance, but someone looking to buy the town. There may be some historical value there, or relics someone is looking for. Check where the cemetary was, has been or is located now. There is always money to be made from a tragedy as gruesom as it seems...it's true.
I agree. I've heard one theory that an arsonist exists within either the fire department or the volunteer firefighters. Another theory hinted that developers may be behind the fires. The town is long overdue for redevelopment, so the landlord/developer theory makes more sense. Someone in the community the size of Coatesville, would probably know if the arsonist lived among them.
The majority of buildings date back to the early to mid 1900's and are probably too expensive to repair, to "bring up to code". So, look to relationships between the landlords, local government officials and/or well capitalized financial groups. Who owns the now deserted mill property? My guess is that no one is really searching for answers that could expose the the plans for development, because those involved in the scheme stand to make money.
I agree. I've heard one theory that an arsonist exists within either the fire department or the volunteer firefighters. Another theory hinted that developers may be behind the fires. The town is long overdue for redevelopment, so the landlord/developer theory makes more sense. Someone in the community the size of Coatesville, would probably know if the arsonist lived among them.
The majority of buildings date back to the early to mid 1900's and are probably too expensive to repair, to "bring up to code". So, look to relationships between the landlords, local government officials and/or well capitalized financial groups. Who owns the now deserted mill property? My guess is that no one is really searching for answers that could expose the plans, because those involved in the scheme stand to make money.
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I can not agree more with this blog here because we as blacks are just as crazy or money hunger as whites because life has taught us dog eats dog and we are all hungry.
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I bet it's some racist kkk bast@rds, who doesn't like AA's Jews, and people from other countries. They know exactly who setting these fires. It's a cover up and a conspiracy. I don't trust a honky as far as i can see or spit.
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This is a great article about a terrible and under-reported crime happening as we speak in an era when we are celebrating the "Obama Effect" on racial unity. This underscores the need for investigative reporting, done in the past by newspapers, and now an endangered profession. Thanks Greg for bringing good reporting to the web. Great job!
The worst of this arson epidemic is that it killed a man ironically one who had survived the Holocaust only to end his life in another.
Thank you.
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