Arsons Fan Flames of Speculation

In the last three months, there have been at least eight suspicious fires in Prospect and Crown Heights, and five resulting deaths.

Four of those deaths occurred two Fridays ago at 5:30 a.m., and those terrible human tragedies have spurred several local politicians and activists to demand serious reform of the way New York City currently investigates arson.

“In 1986,” recalled Brooklyn Councilwoman Letitia James, “there were about 400 fire marshals and 50 supervisors. By 2001, when Bloomberg entered office, there were about 200 marshals and supervisors. Now, through attrition and head count reduction, there are only about 80 marshals and 20 supervisors. This is not acceptable.”

“We need to look at the impact that the reduction of fire marshals has had citywide,” agreed Manhattan Councilman Miguel Martinez. He was recently appointed chair of the Council’s Fire and Criminal Justice Services Committee.

Bill Batson, meanwhile, has already been co-chair of Community Board 8’s Fire Safety Committee for a while.

“We’re one of the only community boards that even has such a committee,” he remarked, before explaining that the historically high rate of arsons in central Brooklyn had caused such an anomaly.

Batson joined several community members in a pre-dawn vigil last Friday outside of 1033 Pacific Street, between Grand and Classon avenues. Friends and relatives of the Fofana family were there with candles and prayers to mark the one-week anniversary of the deaths of two mothers and her two children.

Assita Coulibaly, 36, had originally escaped the flames, but her mother’s instinct sent her back in to look for her two children, three-year-old Mariam and one-year-old Mohammed.

The father, Kassoum Fofana, managed to break a third story window with his fist, and then hung by its ledge until he fell to the ground. The 41-year-old Fofana survived, but the 23-year-old college student he fell on top of, Sherri Williams, did not. She had jumped out of her fourth story window just moments before.

The night before the Fofana family held its vigil, the funeral for Williams was held in Bushwick. “She was not your average 23-year-old,” recalled her distraught mother, Peggy Williams, at the wake. “She was very dedicated.”
Despite being a single mother, Williams was in the process of getting a degree in education from the Borough of Manhattan Community College. In the funeral program, her family described her as “feisty, yet friendly and outgoing.”

Her boyfriend, Tywan Johnson, had spoken to her on the phone just minutes before the fire started. He was in Pennsylvania visiting family with her 8-year-old son, Carlen Alton. “All Sherri spoke about,” he recalled at the wake, “was making a better life for her son and it’s heartbreaking for her life to come to an end like this and it’s not right.”

Jennifer Drame, a relative of the Fofana family, agreed that it wasn’t right. “The fact that these fires have gone on and on and the city has done nothing to stop it…” she lamented, shaking her head. “It sounds like it could have been prevented.”

Five of the recent fires have happened on a seven-block stretch of Pacific Street, with others occurring on nearby Washington Avenue, Carroll Street, St. Mark’s Avenue and Bedford Avenue. The fire department has already classified some, but not all of the fires, as arsons, including the 1033
Pacific blaze that killed four.

The police department, meanwhile, has not yet announced any arrests or suspects. The 77th Precinct is currently offering up to a $12,000 reward for information that helps them crack the case.

There are almost as many theories in the neighborhood about who is setting the fires as there have been fires. According the Fire Department, the M.O. seems to vary significantly from case to case. It’s thus likely that more than one theory may be correct, because there may be more than one arsonist.

Some neighbors are blaming drug disputes, others unscrupulous property owners seeking insurance payments, and still others are hinting at something even more insidious.

“I’m very scared,” admitted Doren Massey, who lives down the block, “because we don’t know who’s next. It’s very scary because somebody is out to remove us from Pacific Park. They’re trying to get rid of all the poor people.”

Most local politicians were not willing to jump on the speculation bandwagon. “Let’s wait to see whether or not they’re all connected,” urged Borough President Marty Markowitz. “I don’t want to get into any extraneous discussions.”

“We’re not here to speculate,” echoed James at a Borough Hall press conference last Thursday. “We want to leave that up to the police and fire departments.”
At least one local elected official, however, was willing to stir the rumor pot.

“Were these fires a nefarious scheme by developers to eliminate the nuisance of owners who will not cash out?” rhetoically asked Congressman Major Owens in a press release. “Has a complex insurance fraud ring taken over Brooklyn? Why has the Fire Marshall and the NYPD not been more vigilant? Could this be a new form of ethnic cleansing? In consideration of all these questions, I will be requesting that the local federal authorities or FBI assist in this investigation.”