Word: arsons
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...Detroit officials are taking a number of steps to thwart the risk of arson. The city's fire department, for instance, has canceled off-days for most of its workforce, which has seen its ranks dwindle from 1,325 a decade ago to about 1,098 because of Detroit's financial crisis. As a result, the fire department has been overwhelmed protecting a vast territory. Bing himself visited several fire stations, restaurants and community centers in recent days to encourage residents to be vigilant about reporting suspected arsons. (See pictures of the decline of Detroit...
...there is little evidence that the significant number of vacant homes due to the real estate crisis has led to a surge in arson across the country; incidents of arson have been fairly constant over the years nationwide, according to the National Fire Prevention Association. Still, officials here and elsewhere have been concerned that more owners of foreclosed properties would torch their homes to collect insurance money. Even this city's suburban residents, in past years, have driven cars they could no longer afford into the city, and torched them for insurance purposes...
...Among the groups trying to thwart any new wave of arson in Detroit this Halloween is Blight Busters, which expects some 500 volunteers to patrol Friday night in one of this city's neighborhoods. In recent years, the group says it has torn down some 300 abandoned homes. Says John George, executive director of Blight Busters: "We now celebrate Detroit on Angels' Night...
...Eyewitnesses have repeatedly told stories of the police looking on as rioters murdered and raped, having gotten access to voter records that allowed them to mark Sikh homes with large Xs, and large mobs being bused in to large Sikh settlements. "On Oct. 31, there was primarily looting and arson attacks," says Jaskaran Kaur, co-director of Ensaaf, a U.S.-based nonprofit that works in the predominantly Sikh state of Punjab. "On Nov. 1, you see that everything happened very methodically - there were simultaneous attacks following similar patterns where the gurdwara was often attacked first before the residences and properties...
...attempted arson was the apparent handiwork of the Earth Liberation Front, a designated domestic terrorist group. But trouble at the scene emerged when FBI and ATF explosives experts seemed to believe their own agencies should head the investigation, recalls Sergeant John Urquhart, a spokesman for the King County sheriff's office. "It was clear that there was something going on. There was tension between the groups of ATF agents and FBI agents," Urquhart tells TIME. (See pictures of crime in middle America...