Broad & Liberty published my piece on arson – Murder by Fire.
You can read the
piece via the blow link or the below text:
Fire is one of the
most destructive forces on earth.
I know firsthand the destructiveness of fire, as I attended a U.S.
Navy firefighting school in 1970 when I was an eighteen-year-old sailor serving
on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk prior
to our tour of duty on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin during the
Vietnam War.
We entered concrete buildings in firefighting gear and equipment,
and we put out real fires, and we put out oil fires on the ground that
stretched across parking lots. The training was realistic and there were some
injuries, including the time when I was the lead on a long fire hose, and I let
the fire get around me. My sleeve and arm caught on fire and the instructor
motioned for me to exit the enclosure. Medical corpsmen were outside, and they
wrapped up my arm, killed the fire and they then examined the damage.
Thankfully, the burns were superficial, but it was a frightening
moment.
Also at the school, we sat through flight deck footage of the
aircraft carrier USS Forrestal’s famous
fire. We watched bombs, missiles and jet fuel ignite, and we saw sailors die
from the fire and explosions. I recall the gruesome images to this day.
After graduating from firefighting school, I went on to serve on a
damage control team aboard the Kitty
Hawk and fought some real fires, but thankfully those fires were
nothing along the lines of the horrendous and deadly fire on the USS Forrestal. But with abundant
amounts of bombs, missiles, and jet fuel onboard, even a small fire can
escalate and become a major catastrophe, as it did on the USS Forrestal.
Later, as a reporter, I covered fires and cases of arson for local
newspapers. Accidental fires are bad enough, but it is a heinous crime when
fires are set intentionally. Especially if someone is killed in the fire. Dying
in a fire is a horrible way to go.
Arson is rarely amusing, but I recall a Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) special agent telling me about a nitwit
gangbanger who poured an accelerant on the floor of a building that he was
planning to burn for the insurance.
When he threw a match on the floor, the flames engulfed the entire
room’s floor and burned his unique and expensive sneakers so badly that the
sneakers stuck to the burning floor. The gangbanger pulled his badly burned
feet out of his sneakers, and he ran out of the building in his bare and
scorched feet.
The ATF’s forensic team identified the gangbanger through his
abandoned and burned sneakers, and when the ATF agents went to arrest him, he
stood in the doorway in heavily bandaged feet. The ATF agents laughed at the
sight of him.
I’ve been thinking about my Navy firefighting training and
experience and my early reporting of arson as I followed the story of the arson
attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion.
On April 13, a man scaled an iron security fence, slipped past the
state police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in Harrisburg.
He then set a fire that forced Governor Josh Shapiro and his family to
evacuate. Thankfully no one was injured. The suspected arsonist was arrested
and faces charges of attempted murder, terrorism, aggravated arson and
aggravated assault.
In another arson case, U.S. Attorney David Metcalf announced on
April 17 that Jason Mattis, 51, of Philadelphia was sentenced to 120 months in
prison and three years of supervised release for using a destructive device to
start a fire at a Northeast Philadelphia home.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Philadelphia, Mattis
was charged in December 2022 and convicted in September 2024 of possessing an
unregistered destructive device.
According to the U.S. Attorney Office, on July 1, 2022, Mattis lit
an incendiary device similar to a Molotov cocktail and threw it onto the porch
of a residence in the Tacony section of Northeast Philadelphia. The weapon
thrown by Mattis ignited and started a fire on the porch of the residence, as
well as on the sidewalk and the street in front. The incident occurred in the
evening while the residents of the home were inside.
Mattis committed this arson while on state parole for an attempted
murder conviction.
“It’s tough to understate the seriousness of a crime like this,
which put the victims, their home, and their neighborhood at risk,” said
Metcalf. “As his lengthy criminal history shows, Jason Mattis lacks respect for
both the law and other people. This sentence keeps him behind bars for years
and the public is safer for it.”
Eric DeGree, the Special Agent in Charge of the ATF’s Philadelphia
Field Division, added, “It is remarkable that this family was able to escape
with their lives when Mattis set their home ablaze with a Molotov cocktail-type
incendiary device. Arson is a serious, dangerous and often deadly crime. Using
the combined capabilities of the ATF-led Philadelphia Arson and Explosives Task
Force with the Philadelphia Fire and Police Departments, we will continue to
seek justice and keep our communities safe from dangerous arsonists.
Thankfully, this arson case, like the governor’s mansion’s arson
case, no one died, unlike an earlier arson case in which a Philadelphia fireman
died fighting a fire set by an arsonist.
On November 21, 2024, former U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero
announced that Al-Ashraf Khalil, 31, and Isaam Jaghama, 31, both of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, were convicted in the June 18, 2022, arson fire at
a Fairhill pizza shop, which resulted in the death of Philadelphia Fire
Department Lieutenant Sean Williamson and injured five other first responders
inside the building when it collapsed.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a federal jury convicted
the defendants on one count each of conspiracy to commit malicious damage by
means of fire of a building used in interstate commerce, and one count each of
malicious damage by means of fire of a building used in interstate commerce.
Khalil was also found guilty of one count of wire fraud, and one count of using
fire in furtherance of the commission of that wire fraud.
Khalil was the owner of the property at 300 West Indiana Avenue,
which housed both apartments and the pizza shop. As proven at trial, in the
early hours of June 18, 2022, he and Jaghama set a fire inside the building so
that Khalil could profit by filing an insurance claim related to the fire. The
day of the fire, Khalil signed paperwork authorizing an insurance adjuster to
file a more than $400,000 insurance claim on his behalf.
“This fire wasn’t an accident or act of God,” said Romero. “But
for these defendants, it never would have started, the building would still
stand, and Lt. Williamson would still be with his family — a wholly preventable
tragedy, sparked by greed. While today’s convictions can never make up for such
an immeasurable loss, they ensure a measure of justice for Lt. Williamson, the
Williamson family, and the dedicated first responders of the Philadelphia Fire
Department. They also reinforce that anyone reckless enough to commit arson
will be held to account for their actions.”
ATF’s DeGree added, “Arson is a dangerous deadly crime. In this
case two families with children had to run for their lives, four responders
were buried alive, and a firefighter was killed. Bringing together the
resources of the ATF Philadelphia Arson & Explosives Task Force and the ATF
National Response Team, the Philadelphia Fire Department, the Philadelphia Fire
Marshal’s Office, the Philadelphia Police Department, the U.S. Marshals
Service, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, we brought these arsonists to justice,
and they now face up to life in federal prison. ATF is committed to protecting
our communities from dangerous criminals and will continue to partner to
prevent and prosecute crimes like this.”
And of course, there is the Kaboni Savage arson case that I looked
back on right here this
past January. I spoke to author and former Philadelphia Inquirer
reporter George Anastasia, who covered the Kaboni Savage story. Anastasia and I
spoke about the case after President Biden pardoned Kaboni Savage. Savage, a
major Philadelphia drug dealer, ordered multiple murders, including the murder
of four children in a firebombing in a home in revenge against a former
cohort-turned FBI witness.
Kaboni Savage ordered the firebombing of the witness’s home in
2004 from his prison cell. Killed in the fire were the witness’s mother and her
fifteen-month-old child, as well as three other children aged ten, twelve, and
fifteen.
The FBI later caught Kaboni Savage on tape in his prison cell
laughing and suggesting, “They should stop off and get him some barbecue sauce
and pour it on them burnt bitches.”
A jury sentenced Savage to thirteen death sentences. But President
Biden overturned the jury’s decision and commuted this mass murderer’s death
sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“He was a monster,” Anastasia told me. “He was a very despicable
individual. The firebombing of that house underscored all that and afterwards
the feds bugged his cell, and he was joking about it. That’s horrible.”
Early civilizations describe Hell as a place of tortuous burning
fire. Murder by fire can then be described as Hell on earth.
Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.
Note: You can read my previous Broad & Liberty pieces via the below link:
.jpg)
