Police Arrest Man Accused Of Starting Fire That Torched Hundreds Of Cars

Police in New York City arrested a homeless man in connection with a parking garage fire on Monday morning that torched over one hundred vehicles. 23-year-old Avon Stephens was taken into custody and charged with arson just hours after the fire ripped through the four-story garage at the Kings Plaza Shopping Center in Brooklyn.

Police said that Stephens was captured on security cameras leaving the parking garage shortly before the fire began. Mall security told the police that Stephens was homeless and had just been told he could no longer sleep in the garage.

It took over 250 firefighters to bring the massive blaze under control. 

“The black, toxic smoke, the heat, the limited area firefighters had to work in all made it very difficult to quickly extinguish the fire,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro said at a press conference.

18 firefighters and three civilians suffered injuries due to the fire, but none of them were life-threatening. 

“Our members have various levels of smoke inhalation and heat exhaustion,” Nigro said. “Working under those conditions with this amount of smoke and this amount of heat, wearing what they wear, one can only imagine what they went through.”

Most of the cars in the garage belonged to local car dealerships. In total 137 vehicles were damaged, including 132 that belonged to a single Mercedes Benz dealership. 

“It’s a lot of money,” a dealership employee told the New York Post. “The most expensive car we have there is $126,000 and that’s the S-Class.”


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