Ore. Family's Security App Records Arsonist Setting Fire

May 4, 2014
A Portland family's security system caught an arsonist apparently starting a chair on fire on their porch Saturday.

May 03--

Lacy Cooper heard a noise on her front porch early Saturday morning, checked the home-security app on her phone and saw a firefighter stomping out the remains of a fire suspected to be part of a string of arsons set along North Lombard and Portsmouth avenues.

"I opened the door and he said, 'Do you have a cup of water,'" said Cooper, whose husband Brent Jones later blanketed social media with images of the firefighter -- and an alleged arsonist -- caught on their home security camera.

Portland firefighters responded to six fires set between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. between North Hodge Avenue and Houghton Street to North Portsmouth Avenue and Lombard Street.

Fire officials said the suspect on Cooper's security video set fires at two homes, two vehicles, one recycling bin and an abandoned chair in a parking lot. Rocks also were thrown at two car windshields.

The suspect appears to be a male, possibly in his 20s, slender build, wearing a red and white hoody and baggy jeans.

No one was injured during the vandalism spree in the Portsmouth neighborhood, according to Portland Police.

Tommy Schroeder, a Portland Fire & Rescue spokesman, said fires caused an estimated $30,000 in damages to the properties.

Cooper and Jones' video caught what appeared to be a young man walking up Cooper and Jones' driveway around 3:59 a.m., easing between their boat and car, and reaching up to the porch.

Eight minutes later at 4:07 a.m., the video shows the swirling lights of a fire truck pulling up and a firefighter on the front porch hurling a chair engulfed in flames into the front yard.

Cooper, who fetched the glass of water that helped put out the remaining sparks on her porch, said firefighters had been on their way to one of the other nearby fires when they noticed her porch ablaze. As they spoke, she said, a call for another fire came and they were off.

"We were so lucky, I don't know how long it would have taken for us to know," she said. "It was just him, he came up there, stomping around and throwing the chair -- pretty heroic stuff."

Cooper and Jones said they posted the video to Facebook, Reddit, Nextdoor and Youtube, "hoping to get his picture out there so he is caught."

Within a few hours, other alleged arson victims had begun sharing their own stories on several neighborhood Facebook pages.

Home security cameras helped another recent crime victim who posted images of a woman taking a planter off the porch of his Hillsboro home. Within two days, the planter was back.

-- Laura Gunderson

Copyright 2014 - The Oregonian, Portland, Ore.

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