GREENVILLE - An FBI spokesman says the agency has begun a civil rights investigation of a fire that heavily damaged a black church which was tagged "Vote Trump" in silver spray paint.

Asked whether it's being investigated as a hate crime, Brett Carr wrote in an email that it's too early to determine what type of crime it could be.

Greenville Mayor Errick Simmons told a news conference Wednesday that he considers it a hate crime.

Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican who has been campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, issued a statement saying anyone who burns a place of worship will answer to God and should also answer to "man's law." He says he expects whoever did it to be arrested.

Greenville is a city of about 32,000 on the Mississippi River in central Mississippi. About 78 percent of the residents are African-American.