An LGBTQ youth center in Phoenix, Arizona, was set on fire by what police are suspecting was a former client.
According to video surveillance of the fire, suspect Darren William Beach, Jr. walked into the Phoenix LGBTQ center one•n•ten on July 12 at 11am. Video shows Beach pouring liquid from a gas canister throughout the center. After Beach left the scene, a fire proceeded to break out throughout the center on the camera’s feed.
A man walks into an LGBT center, douses the floors with fluid from a gasoline canister, and set the building on fire https://t.co/qtxny0IgyQ pic.twitter.com/1AgnRo7CzG
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) July 27, 2017
After testing the canister’s liquid, the Phoenix Fire Department believes Beach poured gasoline onto the center.
“We sent it to the lab to be double and triple tested. Right now, early indications are that yes this was gasoline,” Captain Rob McDade of the Phoenix Fire Department told CBS 5. “We have every reason to believe that person lit a match after that.”
According to the center’s official website, one•n•ten helps LGBTQ youth ages 14-24 through service programs. The center also hosts weekly discussions on “a wide range of social, educational, health, and community issues.” Beach, who is 26-years-old, had previously aged out of the center when he turned 25.
Linda Elliot, one•n•ten’s executive director, was “shocked” by the incident. She did not expect Beach to ever attack the program.
“We were shocked and dismayed and hurt,” Elliot told CBS 5. “It’s a youth who we’ve helped over the years and who had never shown this kind of behavior in the past.”
https://twitter.com/racquetball38/status/890731677055557632
Beach is still wanted as a suspect in the case, but the fire department has since ruled the case is not a hate crime because Beach was a former client of the center, Fox 11 reports. ABC 13 notes that no one was hurt in the fire, but some of the center’s equipment was burned during the arson.
Update July 31, 8:17am CT: Beach was booked and jailed Friday on suspicion of arson of an occupied structure, according to the Associated Press.
