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An unsettling video captures the moment a suspected arsonist ignited a fire at a True Religion jeans store in a Southern California shopping center, marking one of several blazes in the bustling retail area.
Shocked onlookers gathered outside the clothing store located within the expansive Ontario Mills outlet mall, just a short distance from the vast Kimberly-Clark warehouse, which was also engulfed in flames due to a suspected arson attack earlier in the week.
The footage reveals the fire rapidly spreading to the ceiling of the True Religion store, prompting shoppers to flee the entrance and seek safety in the mall’s common areas.
As smoke billows from the store, emergency responders, including police and firefighters, arrive to handle the situation.
The video also shows police apprehending a suspect, a man with a mustache and dark hair, pressing him to the ground as they secure him in handcuffs, while bewildered shoppers look on.
Ontario Fire Department Battalion Chief Scot Roeber said firefighters were called to the mall just before 11 a.m. and arrived to find fires burning inside several stores.
“First arriving companies found several fires in different stores in one immediate area inside the mall,” said Rober.
“All of those fires were suspicious, and they have all been extinguished,” he added.
Ontario Fire officials would not specify how many stores were set on fire.
Fire officials said a man suspected of setting at least one of the fires was taken into custody by police.
Police and fire officials would not identify the suspect. They would not give any hint of the man’s motives.
There were no reports of injuries and all the fires in the mall have been extinguished, officials said.
The mall will remain closed until further notice and an investigation remains ongoing, police said.
With 28 million annual visitors, Ontario Mills is known as one of the is one of the top shopping and tourist destinations in California.
The dramatic alleged arson at Ontario Mills struck a community already rattled by the massive Kimberly-Clarke warehouse arson that occurred less than 10 miles away on Tuesday.
Rober said there is no evidence the two fires are linked but an investigation is ongoing.
Federal prosecutors Friday revealed that the angry warehouse worker accused of deliberately torching the 1.2-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark warehouse near Ontario Mills compared himself to alleged corporate healthcare assassin Luigi Mangione.
Prosecutors say that Chamel Abdulkarim made a series of angry posts about his employer and also chanted about being underpaid in a video posted online that he allegedly made of himself starting the blaze.
In the clip allegedly taken by Abdulkarim, he can be heard saying, “all you had to do was pay us enough to live,” as he sets pallets loaded with paper goods alight.
Abdulkarim is being held by police and is scheduled for arraignment next week on seven felony arson charges.
Abdulkarim, 29, of Highland faces life in prison if convicted.
Nobody was hurt in the warehouse blaze that is estimated to have caused $500 million in damage.