SoCal Arson Update
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that authorities have arrested one suspect and have shot and killed another person who may have been involved in setting fires in Southern California. (earlier post about arson suspicions here.)
Amid worries of new blazes adding to the firestorm already afflicting the region, a man in Hesperia has been arrested on suspicion of arson, and police reported shooting and killing another arson suspect after chasing him out of scrub behind Cal State San Bernardino.
Law enforcement officials said today that they didn't know whether either of the men had started any of the more than a dozen large fires that have devastated Southern California in recent days, including the nearby Lake Arrowhead blaze. The brush fire in Hesperia was quickly extinguished by residents.
Investigators have said that at least two of the huge wildfires, one in Orange County and the other in Temecula, were the work of arsonists.
The confrontation that ended in the shooting death started about 6 p.m. Tuesday when San Bernardino university police spotted a man in a rural area of flood channels and scrub near the campus. University police tried to detain the man, but he got into his car and fled, authorities said. When he began to ram officers' vehicle, they shot him.
The suspect is described as a 27-year-old man with a home address in Arizona. Sheriff's investigators will search his impounded pickup truck pending a search warrant, Lt. Scott Patterson of the San Bernardino Police Department said this afternoon.
No additional information, including his identity will be released until Thursday.
From Arizona? If it was arson, this doesn't sound like a spur of the moment thing or an accident. This would indicate premeditation. Note that they are not saying this man was definitely an arsonist at this point. The other man, however was seen actually lighting a fire near a road.
About three hours later in Hesperia, a man was seen by a female motorist squatting along the side of Highway 173 just south of Arrowhead Lake Road. Sheriff's officials say John Alfred Rund, 48, of Hesperia had just started a fire along the flat, isolated, scrubby road.
The woman called police, and Highway Patrol and sheriff's deputies were soon looking for the suspect, who witnesses said took off on a Honda motorcycle, wearing a red-and-white-striped helmet.
Local residents managed to put out the fire with shovels and dirt. This at least partly explains the sudden, almost simultaneous fire outbreaks.
By Quilly Mammoth, Wednesday, 24 October , 2007 @ 8:40 pm
There is going to be a link between some of these arsonists. The question is what the link is. Too many simultaneous fires for it to be coincidence.