LOS ANGELES — Officials reportedly are investigating possible connections between the spate of arson attacks in Los Angeles and an immigration dispute after police arrested a German national who had been protesting his mother’s pending deportation.
Hollywood area resident Harry Burkhart was arrested Monday and is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at the Inmate Reception Center in downtown Los Angeles.
The 24-year-old, who also carried travel papers from Chechnya, is suspected of lighting more than 50 fires over four days that spread fear and panic across Los Angeles and caused an estimated $3 million in damage.
He will be arraigned Wednesday, FOX News Channel confirmed.
Burkhart’s arrest came after federal officials alerted authorities to a possible suspect who had made a scene at an Immigration Court hearing, law enforcement sources told the Los Angeles Times.
Angry that US authorities were trying to deport his mother, Burkhart erupted into an angry, anti-American tirade and had to be escorted from the court, the sources said.
His mother, Dorothee Burkhart, was detained just before the arson spree began last week at the request of the German government for an undisclosed crime, US authorities told the paper. She has been in federal custody since then.
During Tuesday’s State Department briefing, spokeswoman Victoria Nuland could not shed light on the woman’s immigration status, nor could she confirm whether the two Germans in the case had been able to enter the country under the visa waiver program. She said, however, that scenario was feasible.
Burkhart, who closely resembles a man seen in a surveillance video released Sunday, was detained by a reserve deputy near Sunset Boulevard around 3:00am local time Monday. The officer stopped the suspect’s van because it matched one seen by witnesses to the fires.
Burkhart was brought into custody after authorities responded to a dozen new fires in Los Angeles and West Hollywood early Monday morning.
Crews were first sent to addresses in Laurel Canyon Boulevard, Hollywood and Eastwood Road in nearby Hollywood Hills after fires broke out around 1:30am, according to Capt. Moore.
Officers also responded to two different fires in Sherman Oaks, and two others in West Hollywood.
The new fires took the arson tally since Thursday to 55, in what has been described as the city’s worst spate of deliberately-set fires in 20 years. Fire Chief Brian Cummings on Monday estimated the damage bill at approximately $3 million.
Of those fires, 45 occurred in the Los Angeles area, nine in West Hollywood, and one in Burbank, Erik Scott, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Fire Department, wrote on the department’s blog.
Nearly all of the fires have been started in cars or under the vehicle engine and in most cases spread to car ports, garages and homes.
There have been no further fires since Burkhart was detained but authorities have stressed their investigation is ongoing.