NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A suspect whom authorities have linked to white supremacist movements has been arrested in the March 2019 fire that destroyed an office at a storied Tennessee social justice center.
Regan Prater was arrested last Thursday and charged with one count of arson.
An affidavit filed in federal court in East Tennessee says Prater’s posts in several group chats affiliated with white supremacist organizations connect him to the blaze at the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market. In one private message, a witness who sent screenshots to the FBI asked a person authorities believe is Prater whether he set the fire.
“I’m not admitting anything,” the person using the screen name “Rooster” wrote. But he later went on to describe exactly how the fire was set with “a sparkler bomb and some Napalm.”
A white-power symbol was spray-painted on the pavement near the site of the fire. The affidavit describes it as a “triple cross” and says it was also found on one of the firearms used by a shooter who killed 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15, 2019, about two weeks before the Highlander fire.
Prater was previously sentenced to five years in federal prison for setting another fire in June 2019 at an adult video and novelty store in East Tennessee. He pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay $106,000 in restitution in that case. At the scene of that fire, investigators found a cellphone they later determined belonged to Prater. The phone included a short video showing a person inside the store lighting an accelerant, according to the affidavit.
The federal public defender listed as representing Prater did not respond to an email and phone message requesting comment.
Yearslong investigation sparked worries for Highlander’s leaders
The blaze at Highlander broke out in the early morning of March 29, 2019. No one was injured. The building that burned was part of a complex and it housed decades’ worth of irreplaceable documents, artifacts, speeches and other materials from different eras including the Civil Rights Movement.
In an interview, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a former co-executive director at Highlander, recalled arriving at the scene of the fire to discover some priceless items from the administrative office still smoldering.
“Every time the wind blew, we would see what was left of it go up in flames again, for weeks,” Woodard Henderson said.
