Despite a recent arrest in connection with a string of arson fires that left the Southside of U. California-Berkeley’s campus scattered with fiery debris, two additional small fires were set earlier this week and police have yet to identify any suspects.
The Berkeley Police Department said they hoped the series of 12 fires between July 16 and July 20 would end with the July 20 arrest of Travis Churchill, 25, but the two recycling bin fires – one Monday night and the other four hours later – have raised new questions regarding the identity of those responsible for the acts of arson.
According to Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, detectives have not determined whether there were any other suspects or accomplices in the previous series of arsons, though the department has not ruled out the possibility that the two strings of fires are related.
She added that there is also a possibility that “copy-cat” suspects, who could be responsible for the more recent set of fires as well as for some of the prior fires, are still on the loose.
“We were hopeful after Churchill’s arrest and a week of no new suspicious fires that the series had ended,” Kusmiss said. “We were taken aback when these two fires occurred.”
A recycling bin that had been stuffed with paper was already burned halfway to the ground at 10:07 p.m. when police responded to the scene Monday night at 2915 Telegraph Ave. A few hours later at 2:02 a.m. Tuesday morning, police were flagged down by a taxi driver who reported an additional flaming recycling bin on the same block.
Although police have not found any witnesses to either fire so far, Kusmiss said three people found in close proximity to the second fire were detained by officers shortly after the fire was reported. After being questioned and searched for suspicious possessions, police determined they had no connection to the fire.
Kusmiss said although the recent arsons were in a different part of the city, they are similar to the previous fires because like the others, flammable materials were stuffed into bins and set on fire.
These incidents were the first suspicious fires since the arrest of Churchill, a local homeless man and the only suspect currently in the first string of fires that occurred around the UC Berkeley campus.
Churchill is being held at the Santa Rita Jail on $50,000 bail, and Kusmiss said he has plead not guilty on charges of felony arson for a trash can fire set in front of Sam’s Market on July 20. He did not appear for his July 28 court date, and his next court date is set for 9:05 a.m. on August 4.
Though Churchill told officers he is originally from Oregon, police have recently found a blog that may belong to him, indicating that he is from Martinez, Calif.
Kusmiss said police believe Churchill runs a blog titled “Beer & Blood by Travis Churchill – My Homeless Story,” which chronicles his journey as a homeless person and mentions traveling through Berkeley and Oregon, two locations Churchill is known to be connected to. The blogs’ four posts between March 13 and 19 say he became homeless by choice and has been homeless since then.
“This is not going to be a short-term trek, I am going for the long haul, maybe do some hitchhiking or get on a train, or even just hike it,” a post from March 13 reads. “I will not break, I am not weak, I can push through this, and I can be happy, as I have been the last few weeks, with no worries nor cares. So stay posted and follow my story.”