The arsonist is a shoeless person!
Not that I’m one to call people names. Some people are referring to him as a transient. Some call him homeless. Me, I like how Councilman Tom LaBonge describes our gp visitors with poor money management skills:
“As we all look around at each other here..and down at our shoes and socks… we’re living a step up from some people. Not everyone has shoes. That’s why we still allow barbecues in gp!”
The shoeless person has a name and a face:
Gary Allen Lintz, alleged arsonist. Alleged, my arse.
He was arrested Saturday. (although our own Kristin Sabo reported it here in comments a half hour earlier!) He was convicted of arson last year!!!! WTF was he doing out????
The Times said:
Gary Allen Lintz was spotted by hikers leaving an area near Griffith Park Drive where a slow-moving brush fire broke out shortly after 2 p.m. Saturday…Undercover arson investigators then observed Lintz riding in a group of bicyclists and stopped him for questioning, Miller said. Lintz stood out because he was not dressed in racing apparel.
Douchebagsonbikes had the photo and a good take on it:
Sure, he probably thought laying down a few hundred bucks to make a proper “cyclist disguise” was a waste of beer and lighter money but that amount is chump change compared to his $75, 000 bail.
Wildfire Today talks about why firefighters (and possibly arsonists) are attracted to fire. And Dave Gardetta wrote an opinion on arsonists in the LA Times last year. I don’t agree with some of his facts, which are really opinions, but I agree with this:
Wildfire arsonists, like serial killers, are generally considered to be deviants.
He lists the profile of the typical arsonist which doesn’t fit the arsonists in his article, nor this guy, so you can throw that one out the window. One study was interesting, though:
[they] found that whenever a fire was burning through a Southern California national forest, there was a nearly 1-in-4 chance that another national forest would erupt in flames – suggesting copycats at work…
These fires in gp were not far away from the barbecues that LaBonge makes sure are burning bright for the shoeless. Even though we have no smoking signs, and have used up umpteen expensive hours of firefighter men and women power, fires rage on there. I don’t think this wacko was inspired by them, but certainly smokers that want to light up think, if them, why not me? I had written before that I thought there were at least 50 barbecues in gp. However, I got word from Kevin Regan at Rec & Parks that there are 75 barbecues, all active and working! Fire for everyone!
Toads may have perished.
Some clueless person might wonder, why the big deal on these wildfires? No people died, no buildings gone. Well, we’re talking about a PARK, where people and buildings are not the biggest attraction. We have no idea how many of the rare chocolate orchids died, or which other plants and animals are now extinct. Since these creepy fires were all in daytime, I’m thinking almost all the birds and bigger animals were not too disoriented to escape. But I think about the small ones, whose spend their whole lives in a few square yards, and whose spindly legs can’t outrun a fire, like mice.
Or toads or other amphibians. A couple months ago I posted Gerry Hans‘ pictures of the toads one night, valiantly trying to climb a little bluff. Start, webbed feet slowly grasp the dirt, fall back down the hill, try again. Do you think they made it through these “brush” fires?
Oh, Lintz pled “not guilty.” Go to f-ing hell, you shoeless degenerate.
Donna Barstow
Griffith Park is the 2nd biggest park in the US, and I'm just the person to investigate it! I've lived here for over 25 years. I was part of the PROS Committee in Griffith Park Neighborhood Council and am on the Housing & Tenants Rights Committee in the Silver Lake NC. I'm in the LA Press Club, and you can find some of my articles in the LA Weekly and the Los Feliz Ledger. I'm a cartoonist for Parade Magazine, The New Yorker, LA Times, Slate, & most major media. Questions and contacts welcome.
7 Comments
Kristin Sabo
Go to effing hell, indeed. Pathologically, arsonists are in the category of pedofiles in terms of the difficulty in rehabilitation. So why was this creep on the streets? We need a Megan’s Law web site for arsonists at the very least.
There isn’t a single soul of reasoning age with an IQ of 80 or more who doesn’t understand the danger fire represents, especially in Southern California. Personally, I’m of the mind that anyone — ANYONE — causing a wildfire either through stupidity or malicious intent should be arrested and tried for attempted murder. They’re endangering the lives of all of us. And if it is children who start the fire, their parents are to be tried in their place. Parents are 100% responsible for their children until the age of emancipation or legal emancipation at an earlier age.
In 1995 or 6 (there were two such fires, and I forget which year was the 100 acre and which was the 10 acre), one of the 75 installed barbecues in Griffith Park was intimately involved in the loss of over 100 acres of habitat, recreation resources, and animal life. The entire south-east side of Amir’s Garden was completely lost. The Garden did its job as a fire break, however, and the north-northwest end of the fire was halted there before it got to the nearby historic Boy’s Camp.
What is the cost of such a fire? You hear people say stuff like “no big deal, it’s just open space”, and “fire is a part of the ecosystem”. Well, yes — fire is part of the ecosystem. However, ARSON IS NOT. Fire occurs naturally in chapparal ecosystems on timescales of 100 years, not every 10 years. It’s not known yet what longterm damage to the ecosystem, including plants, animals, soils, air quality, this sadly manmade change is having. It could be that in a few decades, areas of repeatedly burned land in Southern California may be changed irreparably. This remains to be seen.
What I can say about these every-5-year fires is that:
1. it kills animals, either by actual burning, loss of habitat, or plain old stress. In fact, the 2, July 2004 arson fires targeting Amir’s Garden killed all of Amir’s famous bluejays. You know, the 15-20 who followed him up the hill as he hiked to the Garden and begged for goodies? A large number of them were killed outright by the fire. The others were seen in the Garden in the following two weeks disoriented and WALKING ON THE GROUND almost exclusively. It wasn’t long before stress claimed the rest. (Stress kills a lot of sensitive animals, birds are some of the most sensitive.) There are adults who were directly affected by Amir’s impromptu blue jay “shows” as kids, who then later became counselors and teachers a la Amir. How do you calculate this loss?
2. it destroys real habitat. The longterm effects on ecosystems of this increase in fire frequency remans to be determined.
3. it increases floods and erosion potential, thus increasing the burden on our municipal infrastructure, thus COSTING ALL OF US MORE DAMN MONEY.
4. it destroys recreational resources. As an example, any time damage is done to a part of Amir’s Garden, it respresents a full year’s work at minimum to restore. It took three years work to restore the acre lost in the 2004 fires. Amir’s Garden doesn’t cost tax payers any money beyond the water bill since it is an all-volunteer effort, but that is not the case for other recreational resources. So this, too COSTS US ALL MORE DAMN MONEY.
5. it increases/creates environmental health hazards. More people become ill — especially those with lung problems or immune system problems. This increases health care costs, both private pay and taht funded with public money. It results in a net loss of productivity through sick time and days off, which also affects our entire system, COSTING ALL OF US MORE DAMN MONEY.
….’nuff said.
Robin Brock
My respect to Karen, unlike some others actually puts her money, labor and time where her mouth is. Why is she the only one who seems to know that the 1995 fire was caused by a barbeque?
I have spoken to Rangers in Griffith Park who have insisted that the barbeques have never been involved in a fire. Tom LaBonge certainly sees no danger in the barbeques and he has been a park user for a long time.
Following is a direct quote from Brian Humphrey, Firefighter/Specialist, Public Service Officer, Los Angeles Fire Department posted on the Griffith Park Blog:
“While I can’t speak for our friends at the Department of Recreation and Parks, our office staff has no recollection of a recent wildfire being caused in that park by an attended cooking fire within an established picnic area.”
It seems that even the fire department doesn’t remember what causes fire. I would think that 1995 would be recent enough for someone to recall.
Is there some conspiracy to cover up the dangers of the barbeques or is the public memory really short?
Kristin Sabo
A little over a year ago, I asked Rec and Parks for an accounting of the causes of all park fires for the past 15 years or so. The response I got was enlightening, to say the least. Basically, unless a hardcore investigation takes place, the cause is listed as “unknown” or “accidental” — with no real details recorded. The vast majority of the final answer I received were in this category.
That should now answer why you get the answer you get when you ask City officials. The 1995 fire is in this category. So they can easily say what they say to you about BBQs.
I was trolling my memory last night about the fire in question, and this is what I remember when I put some brain cells on it: that fire happened almost to the day that I first met Amir, so it would have taken place in September or early October 1995. It was 100+ acres and started at one of the BBQs located on Griffith Park Drive, south-southeast of Amir’s Garden and the golf course parking. The fire burned north claiming a chunk of the garden, and west, crossing the ridge toward Bronson. I actually went with Amir to look at the ignition point, and that was definitely either the first or second BBQ pit south on Griffith Park drive from the golf course. There were coals thrown from the pit at the point of ignition.
For the record, the 1996 10-acre fire was started by a cigarette left at the base of the hill that the garden sits on — near the electrical boxes/pump house just above the upper golf course parking lot. This too burned the S-SE end of the garden. The suspect was a transient who had been building an encampment in this area off and on for awhile. The fire took out the encampment which stopped this activity. To this day, I check for signs of encampments on this side of the hill fairly regularly for this exact reason — so as not to have a repeat of 1996.
Robin, when you ask City officials about either of these fires, do they have anywhere near the detail I am providing here? NO. Why? Because they do not keep any formal records on fires in the park. Once a fire is turned over to LAFD arson investigators, unless the fire has a clearly arson cause that RAP needs to know about, RAP gets no information back on the cause from LAFD and the fire goes into the “unknown cause” pile. When I asked for an accounting of fire causes, most of the concrete data I obtained from RAP personnel came directly from Park Ranger logs… which are frought with errors because they come from initial radio calls.
How do I know this about Park Ranger logs? Because when we were fighting the Consolidation and faced losing the Park Rangers all together, I went through five years of logs determining exactly what Rangers do day to day in the park so that I could compare it to what OPS was telling the public. At the time, my generous estimate was that Ranger logs underestimated Ranger activities by 33%, but in reality it was closer to 50%. And the first size-up that is reported on the logs is rarely correct. This is totally normal in law enforcement. It always takes investigation not in the heat of the moment to determine the exact nature of an intense incident.
So look — you’ve got the councilmember insisting that no fires were started by BBQs in the park. If you are a Rec and Parks employee, arguing with the councilmember can get you fired. And records about fire causes are absolutely pathetic — most fires are listed as unknown. So what is the easy answer when asked?
Robin, honestly — how often is what you are told by City officials the actual truth when the council office is involved? Honestly.
Anyway…
**
Yeah.
Imagine that.
No fires have been started by BBQs because Labonge says no fires have been started by BBQs.
Im stunned.
Robin Brock
Kristin – Please do not get me wrong. I am not doubting your account of things.
My only point was that it is amazing to me that you are the only person who speaks publicly about it who actually has the information. Why don’t the rangers know? Why doesn’t the fire department know? Why doesn’t our city council know? And, more importantly, how can we stop the same mistakes from happening again if we can’t even get those in charge to admit they happened the first time?
Kristin Sabo
Robin, you’re asking maybe a bigger question than you know. RAP doesn’t have the resources to dedicate people specifically to track down all fire causes. For RAP, its either accidental or arson, and arson investigations are LAFD.
Rangers know what their logs tell them. After all, why would two fires out of the 50 similar fires that have occurred in the past 10 years mean more to them than others? (We know why they mean a lot to me.) Unfortunately, Ranger logs ain’t the greatest data because the Rangers have never had enough support staff to handle dispatch and logs in a meticulous fashion. Ranger logs are actually better now than they have been in a number of years due to a new computer program they’re using. Unfortunately for this conversation, that is a relatively recent development.
As for our City Councilpersons, they know what they want you to know. ’nuff said.
I speak publicly about a lot of stuff that maybe others won’t because… ? Um, well maybe: 1. I don’t have a job on the line (I’m a volunteer, so go ahead and fire me), and 2. I don’t live in CD 4 so I am not concerned about appeasing anyone, and 3. I hate political BS — who has time for that crap? and 4. I am in the park alot, nearly 800 hours a year and at tons of public meetings (I’ve never calculated the hours I spend at those…) So I observe an awful lot firsthand. That’s all. I just tell it like I see it. No one has to believe me or listen to what I say.
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**, what can I say?
Donna Barstow
Kristin,
Thanks very much for that info and for the riveting tragedy of the blue jays. I remember after the May 2007 fire Greg Randall found an entire flock, 60 woodpeckers, all dead. He couldn’t understand why. Both large, smart birds, and so sad to see them gone.
Robin, I’m now beginning to suspect you’re right: that there is a conspiracy to cover up anything that says NO to the general public. That’s what I’ve been saying for a while now: why does the city value visitors who could burn down what they’re visiting?