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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Arizona: 6 people, including 4 firefighters, arrested for arson

There is entirely too much of this crap going on. An excerpt from PVVT.com:
Six men were arrested Monday in connection with numerous suspicious fires in the Ehrenberg, Ariz. area dating back to January 2008. Four of the individuals arrested were volunteer firefighters with Ehrenberg Fire Department.

Brothers Joshua Hall, 19, and Joseph Hall, 20, Fernando Lizarraga, 21, Jacob Hicks, 18 and Eldon Campbell, 25, all of Ehrenberg, and James Seaton, 23, of Blythe, were arrested and booked on fraudulent schemes, arson, burning of wild lands and conspiracy to commit arson after the La Paz County Sheriff's Office began investigating fires involving haystacks, wild lands and unoccupied structures occurring on private property and in unincorporated areas of Ehrenberg.

Both of the Halls, Lazarraga, and Seaton were volunteers with the Ehrenberg Fire Department.

According to Lt. Glenn Gilbert of the La Paz County Sheriff's Office, through investigations into several of the fires over a period of a few months, everything pointed back to the fire department.

"Through thorough investigative techniques and tips from the community, the investigative unit was able to determine that current members of the Ehrenberg Fire Department were involved in the fires," said Gilbert in a press release.

Detectives from the La Paz County Sheriff's Office located one of the volunteer firemen on Tuesday and after several interviews, he reportedly admitted to starting the fires. This led to additional names of suspects who were possibly involved and arrest warrants were issued.

The fires were alleged to have been lit for income. Early reports from Sheriff officials stated that the volunteers received approximately $10 per hour for fighting fires.

Gilbert also reported that the Sheriff's office is working with the County Attorney's office for the issuance of five more arrest warrants for individuals that include former members of the Ehrenberg Fire Department.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Haha i know all these kids, bunch of idiots

Anonymous said...

NFPA does state you should not ride outside the cab but yet everybody does it so why don't we as firefighters make it safer to ride behind the cab and eliminate these homemade brush trucks that are not safe. There are companies out there that are designing ROPS to help this situation.
I wouldn't say they are idiots but I would say they need to rethink there safety policies.

If you have ever fought a fire in Kansas where there is nothing but wind and nothing to stop the fire you would respect riding on trucks a little more. We are killing more firefighters from heart attacks and heat stroke than rollover accidents and this isn't because we are not riding our trucks, because we are!

Scott Blubaugh
a concerned firefighter

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