Security cameras recorded a bizarre incident this week when a man set a convenience store on fire in the middle of the night, severely injuring the clerk who sustained first-degree burns, WDIV-TV reports.
Around 2:50 a.m. Tuesday, a 35-year-old man walked into the Sunoco gas station on West Seven Mile Road in Detroit holding a blue blowtorch in one hand. The man can be seen in the video dumping trash out of a bin onto the floor. He then spoke to the clerk before he bent down to ignite the garbage.
The man, who had previously paid for gas, fled the scene as red and orange flames shot up and engulfed the entrance in seconds.
The 27-year-old clerk had to run through the fire to get out; medics rushed him to a local hospital, where he received treatment for first-degree burns, according to Fox 2. Police on Wednesday announced they made an arrest but have not released the suspect’s name.
Detroit Police Chief James White said it appears the suspect was experiencing mental health challenges.
“There’s a lot to this case,” White said, according to CBS Detroit. “The motives are totally unclear. But I think we know that this person was not dealing with, you know, their normal state of cognition. I mean, there’s something going on with that person.”
Customers said they could not understand why anyone would want to attack the gas station’s clerk.
“I don’t know why somebody would do something like that,” Christa Frederick told CBS Detroit. “They’re always good people. They’re always good to everybody. They don’t mistreat people up here. That’s another reason why I like coming here.”
In what appears to be a coincidence, a different man hours earlier had allegedly driven a vehicle filled with accelerants to a Speedway gas station elsewhere in Detroit and attempted multiple times to ignite the materials on fire. He failed.
“We think that, coincidentally, two people made horrible decisions within 12 hours of each other,” White told Fox 2. “And thankfully no one was killed.”
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[Feature Photo: Man ignites convenience store on fire/Detroit Police Department]
