Man charged with arson after fires are set inside Ontario Mills mall
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A man was arrested Friday morning after multiple fires were set inside stores at the Ontario Mills mall, officials said.
Ontario police said they responded to the mall about 10:30 a.m. after callers reported that a man with a lighter and a backpack was intentionally setting fires.
Officers found the suspect, whom they identified as 28-year-old Luis Javier Gallegos Jr. of Rancho Cucamonga.
Police said in a statement that Gallegos did not comply with their requests, and they used force to arrest him.
Gallegos and an officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries during the arrest, the police said.
After being treated at a hospital, Gallegos was booked into the West Valley Detention Center and charged with felony arson, police said.
Police said they are working to identify a motive for the crime and whether there is any connection to the April 7 arson at the Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario.
Prosecutors say the inferno destroyed the 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse and the paper products inside, resulting in $500 million in damage.
Authorities say a man who burned down an Ontario warehouse was sending a message against the country’s larger economic system.
Chamel Abdulkarim, a Highland resident who worked at the warehouse, is facing state and federal arson charges connected to the fire.
Abdulkarim, 29, filmed himself setting fire to multiple pallets of paper goods, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.
In the video, he says, “If you’re not going to pay us enough to [expletive] live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this [expletive].”
Anyone with information about the fires Friday at Ontario Mills mall is asked to contact the city’s Police Department at (909) 986-6711.
