Is it Arson or Something Else? Hiding True Arson Stats
By Ed Nordskog, SWAIT Contributor
The attached story, Michigan city’s blight gives rise to increased arson by Ron Fonger (originally posted on mlive.com) seems a million miles away from the issue of wildland and serial arson, but like all such stories, there is a lot to unpack. The ongoing series of fires in badly blighted cities like current-day Flint, Detroit, Baltimore, and most "rustbelt" cities in the Eastern U.S. makes it seem like there are bands of roving serial arsonists wandering through the night. It is not that simple.
Serious blight has so many problems associated with it, arson is just one of dozens. The fires are most likely caused by a mix of homeless-related fires, some gang or narcotics related fires, vandalism inspired fires, and the possibility of citizens wanting to rid their neighborhood of vacant and dangerous properties. The city is near-broke, and the emergency services are barely able to take care of basic needs, let alone engage in serious criminal investigations.
All of this is understandable and relatable to most investigators who are overworked, underpaid, and seldom rewarded by support from fire/police chiefs or prosecutors. However, the one thing in this article really stands out as appalling is where the current fire chief has openly conceded to the arsonists. He openly admits he does not want to classify arson as arson, to avoid high crime rates for the city and piling more work onto his overworked investigators. This may seem a noble gesture, but he is a public servant and is paid to do the best he can, not hide the facts. The city and/or fire chief have tried to re-classify arson to something else and then justify this subterfuge by claiming fires set by squatters and the mentally ill are not prosecutable.... of course they are.
This chief should not have the job if he is unwilling to approach arson in an honest manner. He is not alone. Because fire chiefs across the nation are not beholden to the FBI when they record statistics for their annual Uniform Crime Report, the chiefs often tweak the stats by refusing to classify thousands of fires as incendiary. They have made up such categories of fire classifications as "rubbish", "vandalism" (instead of arson), "debris only", vegetation, or the worst...."nuisance" fire. All of these are inserted into fire reports to cover arson fires that are small in nature and occur in dumpsters, to empty outbuildings, abandoned structures, junk cars, and vegetation within an urban area. Virtually every one of these fires is an act of arson and should be documented that way, so investigators have a clear picture of the fire problem in their area and can detect emerging arson series before they get out of hand.
A short anecdote to illustrate the widespread nature of this sort of policy by fire chiefs.... My former agency, Los Angeles Sheriff's, took over policing in the City of Compton in 2000. The Sheriffs Arson-Explosives Detail became in charge of arson cases within the City of Compton. Compton has had a long history of being a street gang saturated, blighted, and corrupt city, with many of its politicians, police force and even fire department members allegedly involved in ongoing corruption and serious crime to include murders and arson. In the years prior to the Sheriff's taking over, Compton typically reported about 2-3 arson fires per month. From the day the Sheriff's took over, we typically saw an average of 15-25 arson fires per month. Nothing else had changed, except the Compton Fire Dept. had simply refused to document most of their arson fires solely to make the Chief look good and appease the city. Several months later, the Compton City Council, upset by the massive increase in arson fires (on paper), told the Sheriff's the arson stats were unacceptable, and they demanded the Sheriff's Arson-Explosives Detail stop investigating arson fires in their city (Note they didn't demand more arrests or case closures, they demanded we stop investigating fires completely). My unit was forbidden to investigate fires in the city after that, and not at all surprisingly, the arson stats dropped immediately to their pre-Sheriff's levels.
The lesson here is fire officials can and sometimes do arbitrarily create statistics to suit their political needs, and not necessarily the needs of the public. Most veteran investigators will recognize these practices are just as common among wildland arson fire chiefs as well. This violates the main message of arson investigation groups such as the IAAI, NAFI, and even NWCG, who strongly advocate a properly trained fire investigator must respond to every single fire.... not just the ones the Chief wants investigated.