L.A.’s Arson Squad Fights Uneven Battle

Long before the embers had cooled in the $25-million Wilshire Corridor fire, a dozen city and federal arson investigators armed with sophisticated hydrocarbon detectors had arrived at the scene to determine where and how the spectacular blaze began.

In short order, the team was able to declare that last month’s conflagration, which forced 150 people from their luxury condominiums and homes, had been deliberately set, probably with gasoline.

Yet the chances of catching those responsible--as in most arson fires in Los Angeles and elsewhere across the country--are slim.

Arson is one of the costliest crimes, experts say, but one of the easiest to get away with.

Nationwide, arrests were made in only 15% of all 1988 arson cases, according to the FBI.

In Los Angeles last year, arrests were made in 21% of the cases investigated by the arson team. However, because some are minor and the department’s resources are limited, the team investigated only about one-third of the fires found to have been deliberately set. In all, 288 arrests were made in more than 7,000 cases of arson or other fires of suspicious origin in Los Angeles.

“The frustration inside arson units becomes palpable at times,” said Alex A. Ahart, executive secretary of the International Assn. of Arson Investigators. “Not to sound flip, but arson is the first and only crime in the books where you’ve first got to able to prove that God didn’t do it.

“Arson is a prosecuting attorney’s nightmare because he (usually) doesn’t have the eyewitnesses, the fingerprints or the smoking gun.”

Time and again, suspects in high-profile Los Angeles blazes were freed shortly after being arrested because of a lack of clear-cut evidence. That happened after fires that devastated the Los Angeles Public Library and the Pan Pacific Auditorium during the late 1980s, as well as in the blaze earlier this month that destroyed a partially completed Los Feliz condominium complex

Since so many cases go unprosecuted, some fire officials voice frustration with the district attorney’s office, which they say has traditionally been hesitant to handle arson prosecutions built on circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors, for their part, say they are stymied by the lack of hard evidence. Defense attorneys, meanwhile, are frustrated by the arrest of clients on what they contend are wild, misguided stabs at winning confessions.

In addition, some critics within the Los Angeles Fire Department question whether its 19-member arson team can do an adequate job in a city of 3.4 million people, where annual fire losses frequently exceed $100 million. They also complain that department officials have not been forceful enough in seeking additional manpower during city budget deliberations.

Others, outside the department, have raised similar questions.

“I don’t see how the guys (in Los Angeles) have enough time to do a good investigation on every fire,” said Ahart, whose organization of arson investigators has 7,600 members nationwide. “You can only stretch yourself so thin.”

By way of comparison, San Francisco, with a population of 731,700 people, has a 15-member arson task force; Houston, with a population of 1.7 million people, has 60 arson investigators, and New York City, with a population of 7.3 million people, has more than 200 arson team members.

In several interviews, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Lon Pursell insisted that the city’s current manpower level is sufficient. But on Friday, Assistant Fire Chief Tony Ennis acknowledged, “No, we do not have enough people in the arson squad.

“It would be beneficial to the department and the city,” Ennis added, “if we could add, on an annual basis, another body or two.”

At the heart of any debate about arson is the unique nature of the crime. Unlike with other offenses, experts first must determine whether a crime has actually occurred.

“If you have a burglary, you’re probably missing your TV. If you were robbed, you’re probably missing your wallet and that’s known right away,” said the city’s senior arson investigator, William S. Cass.

But when a fire breaks out, Cass said, arson experts must sift through mountains of blackened rubble to determine whether it was a frayed wire or a Molotov cocktail that was to blame.

With much of the evidence reduced to ashes--and most such fires occurring in the dark of night, without witnesses--the most arson investigators can generally hope for is a singed fingerprint, a bit of genetic material or the charred remains of a gasoline can that can be directly linked to a suspect.

In recent years, the science of determining arson has advanced significantly. When a major fire occurs now, the city’s arson squad is assisted by a high-tech mobile unit operated by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The lab on wheels serves as headquarters for four specially trained chemists and explosives technicians who sift through rubble in search of characteristic burn patterns and residues left from incendiary materials. With its increasingly sophisticated equipment and resources, the city’s arson squad usually can determine what caused a blaze in anywhere from two days to two weeks.

But the trail frequently ends there.

“Once you have proved that a fire is of incendiary origin, then you have the task of tying it to someone,” explained Calvin E. Wells, an instructor in arson science and chief fire investigator for the Pasadena Fire Department. “That takes us into the area of motivation, and that is where the confusion starts.”

In arson, the motives are often far less recognizable than in many other major crimes. Fires are deliberately set for spite, for profit, for juvenile thrills or to cover up other crimes such as burglary or murder.

In recent years in Los Angeles, no arrests have been made in several cause celebre arson cases. Two examples: the Westwood condominium blaze last month and the Wilshire District office tower fire last March that severely damaged the state Department of Savings and Loan headquarters

In several other high-publicity Los Angeles cases, arrests were made, only to have the suspects freed within days.

A prime example is what happened to Harry Peak, the garrulous unemployed actor arrested by the city arson team as the culprit in the 1986 Los Angeles Public Library fire.

At the time, Peak, who reportedly had given conflicting stories about his presence at the fire to friends, was publicly identified by Fire Battalion Chief Dean Cathey as “the perpetrator.” But three days later, Peak was freed when the district attorney’s office, citing a lack of sufficient evidence, declined to prosecute the 28-year-old Hollywood man.

After Peak was let go, recriminations flew.

Cathey continued to insist that Peak had set the $22-million blaze. But Deputy Dist. Atty. Stephen Kay, concerned that his office was receiving a black eye from the Fire Department, told reporters that the arson investigators arrested Peak as “a last straw” in the hope that he would break down and confess to the arson.

“They told us that their investigation had reached a dead end,” Kay said, “that they didn’t have enough evidence to file a case.”

Peak, who called a lawyer rather than confessing, has since filed a $15-million lawsuit against fire officials for false arrest and slander. The city, meanwhile, has filed a $23-million cross-complaint against Peak, insisting that he was still considered responsible for the devastating blaze.

In the Pan Pacific Auditorium fire last year, a transient was picked up and declared the arsonist. But he too was released due to a lack of evidence.

In declining the case, the district attorney’s office accused fire investigators of “jumping the gun.” Fire officials, meanwhile, blamed the staff of politically embattled Mayor Tom Bradley for pressuring them to go forward with a hastily scheduled press conference to announce that the case had been solved.

“If he says he did it and he is in good shape mentally, that’s probably enough information to arrest him,” the suspect’s attorney, Albert Gordon, reflected last week. “But if he says he did it and he’s a fruitcake--he’s mentally ill--you have to be very careful . . . you kind of investigate him further.”

Again last week, a transient was detained shortly after a suspicious fire destroyed a two-story condominium project under construction in the Los Feliz area. And again, the man was released a few hours later.

Defending the series of spurious arrests, senior arson investigator Cass said that fire officials have little choice but to follow whatever leads they have, even when they turn up transients or mentally unstable individuals. “It would be in error if you did not pursue that individual, detain that individual and find out as much as you could . . . and then make your decision.”

Cass also acknowledged that many arson cases, particularly those involving transients, are bound to make prosecutors more skittish than normal about filing charges.

“That hesitancy is based on a lack of knowledge about the crime itself and maybe their not wanting to get involved in what could be a complex, circumstantial case,” Cass said. Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert E. Savitt, who specializes in arson prosecutions, admitted that arson cases often “frighten prosecutors.”

“I understand the reticence and reluctance of prosecutors to go to court when they don’t have eyewitnesses to the actual fire or an admissible confession, if there is a confession,” Savitt said. “Of course, if there is a confession, it’s very simple.”

But Fire Department critics question whether the arson team has the manpower to adequately follow up most cases with the painstaking investigations necessary to capture and prosecute the right suspect.

At times, investigators feel overwhelmed by the heavy caseload. “It’s like a triage (medical) team deciding who lives and who dies,” said one source familiar with the team’s operations.

Without question, said Ahart of the arson investigators’ association, the Los Angeles arson unit should be expanded.

“How can 19 people cover 3 million people?” he asked. “I bleed for the guys who are arson investigators in Los Angeles.”

Times staff writer John Johnson contributed to this story.