PBS Newshour 1/2/2012
"Federal officials' tip leads to arson suspect" by Richard Winton, Ari Bloomekatz and Joe Mozingo, Los Angeles Times 1/2/2011
Excerpt
They erupted almost simultaneously, a sudden barrage of fires about 1:30 a.m. that signaled the fourth night of an arsonist's rampage. In 90 minutes, nearly a dozen vehicles had gone up in flames on both sides of the Hollywood Hills.
But this time, early Monday, police finally had an edge.
Hours before the fires began, federal officials alerted authorities that a Los Angeles man might be the suspect they were looking for, according to law enforcement sources.
The man had recently made a scene at a Los Angeles Immigration Court hearing, the sources said. An official involved in that court case recognized him when police Sunday night released images of a "person of interest" seen on a surveillance tape after a car fire at the Hollywood & Highland shopping center.
Patrol officers were told he would be driving a blue Dodge minivan.
Police swarmed the area and set up a roadblock on Laurel Canyon Boulevard.
At 3 a.m., a reserve sheriff's deputy spotted the minivan in West Hollywood and pulled it over near the Sunset Strip. The driver appeared to match the grainy video and inside his minivan, officials found fire starter sticks, police said. He was taken into custody, and the outbreak of fires came to a sudden halt.
"I feel very good that we've got the right guy," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said in an interview. "He had the right stuff in his van and I am confident in the arrest."
At a news conference Monday evening, Beck emphasized that the investigation was ongoing and that it could take some time to present the case to prosecutors. "We are confident in our investigation, but we have a long way to go," he said.
The man police arrested remains something of a mystery. Law enforcement sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because the case was ongoing, first said the suspect was a 55-year-old named Harry Burkhart.
Police later said Burkhart was actually a 24-year-old German national who carried travel papers from Chechnya. He had spent time in Germany, they said, but had lived in Southern California for the last several years. They weren't clear on his alleged motives but speculated that he might have been furious over his mother's pending deportation.
A senior LAPD official said the suspect had attended a recent immigration hearing regarding his mother's case and erupted in a tirade, spewing angry anti-American statements.
It was this incident that eventually led police to Burkhart. Several sources said the tip came from an official at the State Department. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Monday also thanked the U.S. Marshals Office for helping identify Burkhart.
L.A. detectives were also investigating reports that either Burkart or a family member was connected to an arson case in Germany, said the senior LAPD official.
TV footage showed Burkhart after his arrest, dressed in black, wearing his hair in a ponytail and grinning.
Investigators are trying to determine if other people were involved in the arson rampage that had parts of the city on edge for four days.
Since Friday morning, at least 50 fires were set, mostly in the Hollywood area, but also on the Westside and in the San Fernando Valley. Many of the blazes were in carports and driveways, and spread to apartment buildings and homes.
1 comment:
While such incidents might be pleasing to pyromaniacs, the victims of these incidents tell another story. Their accounts are very important especially for fire investigators since these investigators try to assemble the entire puzzle.
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