Lyndhurst, NJ, Man Arrested after Setting, Live-Streaming Fire in Building
New York Daily News
(TNS)
A New Jersey man has been charged with arson after setting his apartment building on fire and streaming it live on his Facebook page, authorities in Bergen County said Wednesday.
Alexander Pluchino, 42, was charged Tuesday with aggravated arson, arson, risk of inflicting widespread injury or damage, criminal mischief and failure to control or report a fire, Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella announced in a statement.
The drama began unfolding at around 8:25 a.m. Tuesday, when emergency personnel in the northern New Jersey town of Lyndhurst were summoned to a fire in a multi-family residence on Valley Brook Ave.
Police officers arrived first and found flames consuming a pile of debris in the building’s common stairwell. They blasted the blaze with a fire extinguisher and “removed a resident who was located near the source of the fire,” Musella’s statement said.
That person turned out to be Pluchino, who investigators later deduced had “intentionally set fire to cardboard, along with other debris, in the common stairwell” of the building.
Pluchino, who’d been livestreaming for nearly 20 minutes before cops arrived, continued recording even after they dragged him outside to safety. The video cut off only when firefighters took the camera away.
It was the latest in a stream of videos Pluchino had been posting for weeks, some of them as long as three hours and others in which he was stark naked, according to the Daily Voice.
Pluchino’s fire video was still visible on Facebook as of Wednesday night. In it, he’s blasting rap music, mumbling incoherently and smoking while panning the camera over the junk-lined stairs. About 13 minutes in, he holds up a piece of cardboard lettered in Sharpie, with a phone number he appears to be asking the state’s insurance department to call.
He then sets the cardboard alight and tosses it out of sight behind the pile on the stairs. As the flames grow, a screeching fire alarm keeps time with the music.
Cops burst in, followed by firefighters, who grab Pluchino’s camera on their way out. The last thing seen on the video is a firetruck as a voice asks, “How do you shut this thing off?”
Pluchino was booked into the Bergen County Jail where remained held without bail pending a court appearance in Hackensack.
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