Tatyana Ross Jackson State University students and employees awoke to the news that seven fires had been intentionally set in the surrounding community, including one at the JSU baseball field.<\/span><\/p>\n The fires were mysteriously set on eve of the important midterm elections.<\/span><\/p>\n According to WLBT News, the suspect has been identified as 23-year-old Devin McLaurin. Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones said McLaurin was arrested in Terry, Miss., after a tip. McLaurin is expected to be transferred to the Jackson Police Department for further questioning with representatives from the Federal Bureau of Investigations in attendance to see if any hate crimes were committed.<\/span><\/p>\n JSU students had this to say about the fires.<\/span><\/p>\n Alfred Allen, a freshman biology\/pre-medicine major from Milwaukee, Wis. said that he believes the arson incidents were alarming to students and motivated by malice.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMore often, numerous fires can point towards arson in which malcontent is the motive. This should be top priority for the Jackson Police Department (JPD),\u201d said Allen.<\/span><\/p>\n Henry Pegues also feels that these incidents should be priority for JPD.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey need to investigate where this person came from and also find ways to prevent this from happening again,\u201d said Pegues, a junior journalism and media studies major from Clinton, Miss.<\/span><\/p>\n Stanley Powell, a freshman theatre\u00a0major from Crystal Springs, Miss., was surprised by the incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI kind of feel like it\u2019s really weird. Like I wouldn\u2019t expect someone to burn down several areas and so this really caught me off guard with the recent places being set on fire,\u201d said Powell.<\/span><\/p>\n The seven locations set on fire included:<\/span><\/p>\n Public Safety at Jackson State released the following alert to students and employees via email on Nov. 8. It read in part:<\/span><\/p>\n The Department of Public Safety is working with local and state law enforcement and fire officials to solve the arsons which took place this morning\u00a0on and around the JSU campus. A person of interest has been identified.<\/span><\/p>\n Crime Alerts and updates are posted in an effort to make the JSU community aware of any situation that has posed a potential threat to the safety and well-being of those who live, work, study and visit the campus. By keeping you aware of crimes occurring in your community, JSU Department of Public Safety hope to encourage you to continue being actively involved in crime<\/span><\/p>\n prevention and reporting.<\/span><\/p>\n Students at Jackson State University and residents of the West Jackson community are eager to find out the motivation for the rash of arson incidents.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel that\u2019s it goes to show that people really don\u2019t care about the things they do or the people it will affect,\u201d said Da\u2019Maje Russell, a freshman chemistry major from Memphis, Tenn.<\/span><\/p>\n Brylyia Baptiste, a junior early childhood education major from New Orleans, La., was concerned about the well-being of herself and her peers.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPersonally, because of the incidents around our school, this makes me worry about not only my safety but other students as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Tatyana Ross and Alivia Welch contributed to this article.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Image: Epiphany Church goes with the Community surrounding JSU (Local News) – Google Image Tatyana Ross Editor-in-Chief Jackson State University students and employees awoke to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"editor_plus_post_options":"{}","editor_plus_copied_stylings":"{}","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11269"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11280,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11269\/revisions\/11280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.jsums.edu\/jsuflash\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEditor-in-Chief<\/span><\/p>\n\n