Posted on 01/12/2025 5:00:35 AM PST by MtnClimber
A suspect seen starting fires with a blow torch in a Los Angeles neighborhood Thursday afternoon is not being charged with arson because a police investigation found “no probable cause.” The man is still being detained on a felony probation violation amid the ongoing investigation, Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Dominic Choi said in a press conference Friday.
The arrest comes amid growing speculation that at least some of the LA fires were started by arsonists.
The suspect was arrested Thursday night on suspicion of arson near the Kenneth fire, a wildfire that started at about 2:30, Thursday afternoon. The suspect, believed to be a homeless man, had reportedly been seen riding around on a bicycle in Woodland Hills Thursday afternoon, attempting to set numerous old Christmas trees and garbage cans on fire with a blow torch.
A resident saw the man wielding a yellow blow torch and called on his neighbors to help him apprehend the suspected arsonist. The neighbors banded together, using zip ties and rope to detain the man.
With help from neighbors, they cornered him and made the citizens arrest.
“We really banded together as a group. A few gentlemen surrounded him and got him on his knees. They got some zip ties, a rope and we were able to do a citizens’ arrest,” a witness said.
The suspect was described as agitated and like “he was on something.”
“He was very like, ‘I can’t stop, I can’t stop'” a resident told Fox11. “I’m not putting this down. I’m doing this.”
The restrained man is believed to be in his mid-twenties to early thirties and allegedly speaks Spanish as his first language. Authorities have not revealed the suspect’s identity.
The witness said the man was “very focused on moving forward with his blow torch.”
A police official said last night that they believed the suspect had set the Kenneth fire, which had burned through 1,000 acres by Friday morning. That blaze is reportedly 35 percent contained.
Despite multiple eyewitness seeing the suspect starting fires, the Los Angeles police announced Friday morning that their investigation had determined that there was not enough probable cause to make an arrest for arson.
“There was not enough probable cause to arrest this person on arson or suspicion of arson, and therefore, this person was arrested on a felony probation violation,” said Chief Choi.
Multiple arson incidents across Los Angeles have been captured on video and shared on social media, including a video posted on X by a Stanford professor.
“People are lighting fires in otherwise non-burning urban areas of LA. Saw this happen first hand at 302 Pico in Santa Monica,” wrote Andrew Huberman, Professor of Neurobiology and Ophthalmology at Stanford Medicine. “Called it in & fire dept & police responded.”
“FirePhotoGirl,” an independent photo journalist who has been posting pictures and videos of the raging California fires on X, caught a determined homeless woman trying to set fire to the brush in Colton, west of LA.
“Unbelievable I am literally fighting with a homeless person who is lighting fires!!!! She told me she is doing a good thing,” she posted, along with video of the encounter. FirePhotoGirl said in a subsequent post that police arrived, but the woman had already “took off in the wash.”
A man was also spotted setting fires in the San Fernando Valley.
“My brother in law took this video of a man deliberately setting a fire in the Sepulveda Dam area,” @jasonsha posted on X. “He was apprehended and was let go, because he didn’t have an incendiary device. But he did have gas in the white jug.”
An LA-area homeowners association has reportedly sent out a newsletter warning residents to be on their guard for a “savvy arsonist” targeting affluent areas.
In the letter, Shirley Worrels, the president of the Baldwin Hills Estates HOA, said she had been informed by “a well-sourced person” in the LAPD that the fires are the work of “a very savvy arsonist” who seems to know a lot about “wind patterns and fire science.”
“The arsonist seems to be targeting affluent areas that abuts brush areas,” Worrels wrote. “Our community needs to be very vigilant for any suspicious activity.”
Worrels suggested that residents monitor their surveillance cameras and to investigate if their dogs are barking at something.
American Greatness has reached out to the HOA for comment and verification of the letter.
Five separate fires in Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Lidia, and Sunset have ravaged through thousands of acres and continue to spread, causing mass destruction and evacuations.
All told, approximately 36,000 acres in Los Angeles County have been scorched, with more than 10,000 homes, businesses, vehicles, and other structures destroyed as of Friday.
A new fire erupted in Granada Hills, northeast of LA, Friday morning.
At least 20 looters have been arrested for raiding homes damaged or destroyed by the catastrophic wildfires, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. At least ten people have perished in the fires.
Update:
The Daily Mail has interviewed a fireman who claims two men were caught on video dumping gasoline and setting it alight immediately before the Palisades fire broke out.
A resident reportedly told a senior firefighter about the video after the blaze had started ravaging the area.
“By then we were too busy,” the firefighter said. “We told him to take the video to the police.”
According to the Daily Mail, the providence of the footage remains a mystery as the LAPD said they “have not received any reports of arson” related to the Palisades Fire.
News of the video comes amid growing suspicions of arson or foul play after one person was arrested for allegedly starting another blaze, the Kenneth Fire, on Thursday, police said. The man has not been charged.
Two days before that incident, a senior firefighter was one of the first on the scene battling the original Palisades blaze with his crew on North Piedra Morada Drive at the top of the Highlands Palisades neighborhood, when a resident approached him with a shocking claim.
“We had a resident come to us and said he got a video of two men dumping gas and lighting it off,” said the LAFD official, who asked to remain anonymous.
It looks like the facts don’t fit the narrative the wokeists want to spin.
Climate change.
reckless endangerment?
open fires?
Give him his torch back along with a map to the Prosecutor’s house.
AND THE MAYOR
These two are nothing that a good rope and strong tree branch can’t fix.
The suspect was described as agitated and like “he was on something.”
“He was very like, ‘I can’t stop, I can’t stop’” a resident told Fox11. “I’m not putting this down. I’m doing this.”
There ya go! He’s a victim - not a criminal!
He wasn’t the right ethnicity or legal status to be guilty of anything.
Refuse to charge him CA, the next person who catches a guy starting fires might just beat him to death instead. Vigilantism is the logical and just result when government becomes lawless.
Also if they charge him it weakens thier climate change narrative and blows up DEI and illegal immigration narratives if he is one.
“The man is still being detained on a felony probation violation”
hell why bother? 🤷
I’m beginning to have limited sympathy for these people because a majority of them voted for this mess in one way or another.
Hopefully they’ve woken up but I doubt it.
Why not arrest him and put him in jail until the fires are out.
Pressure from the Defund the Police activists and DA Gascone radicals who have taken control of the California government?
Seriously, at some point you have to start pointing fingers at the moronic voters who willfully voted for the radicals who are destroying California.
Is this the same guy who was caught with 7 cell phones, and a credit card from the UN? If so, then he was just doing his job.
This is proof the woke/leftist/socialistic system in California is both at fault and broken.
These systems always fail (USSR/Cuba now Venezuela now) and we are seeing it happen in real time.
what else explains
the lost video
the “ no probable cause “ despite multiple eyewitnesses of actual criminal acts with a blow torch
and all the other arsonist eyewitnesses dismissed and perp let go
?????
Just doing a project for Newsome and Bass.
california is home of fruit & nuts. Unfortunately, they are the voters and those they voted for. california has become an open air mental health residential facility. I guess people thought living a “progressive” life in a “progressive” society was good. Surprise! It isn’t! Being progressive, liberal and woke leads to their current pathetic mess. California Dreamin’ is really California Collapsing and California Dystopia.
Enjoy!
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