Another group of Tempe arsonists
This couldn't have been the arson I was falsely arrested for. It happpened almost a month after I was falsely arrested in South Scottsdale.I am at least 550 years older then the guy. They certainly didn't have "reasonable suspicion" to stop me!
Tempe man arrested in series of condo arson cases
by Megan Boehnke
Sept. 24, 2009
The Arizona Republic
After two months of suspicious fires around a north Tempe condo complex and one day after holding a community meeting there, police arrested a resident who told officers that he "just liked to watch fire burn."
Fire spokesman Mike Reichling described Justin White, 28, of Tempe, as a "true arsonist" in a "textbook case," and said White even set fire to a laundry room next door to investigators who were looking into an earlier blaze at the condo.
Police said they found his fingerprints at the scene of two separate fires. They arrested the Walmart store manager Wednesday at his home at the complex near Scottsdale and McKellips roads. White, who lives in the complex, is facing 12 felony counts, including seven for arson. Other charges include two burglaries, two vehicle burglaries and an auto theft. Some of the vehicle burglaries were related to arson and others were not, said Police Commander Kim Hale.
One family was forced to move out of a duplex when police say White twice set fire to the building, once inside the vacant residence next door and the second time from the carport.
Police matched White's fingerprints to brochures that were stuffed into outlets in the vacant residence. The brochures never fully ignited and police say he moved on to the kitchen where the stove burners were turned all the way up. Police don't know what material he lit with the burners, but noted that the result caused significant damage in the room.
Investigators also matched his prints to a foam spray insulation can used to light fires outside the duplex earlier this month, and said they caught him on a surveillance camera leaving and coming back to the building.
Police and fire officials held a community meeting Tuesday night at Laird Elementary School that drew between 50 and 60 people, officials estimated.
Reichling said residents were helpful in noting suspicious activity that helped investigators become certain that the arsonist was a resident in the area. All of the fires occurred within 100 yards of White's residents, investigators said. The fingerprints came back yesterday with a positive match to White and he was arrested at about 5:30 p.m.
Investigators were worried that the progression of the fires could lead to the use of accelerants and more dangerous fires.
White is also accused of setting cars, dumpsters and the laundry room on fire.
The damage has totaled about $100,000, Reichling said.