He lit a truck on fire at a Tacoma gas station with three people inside, police say
A man is suspected of lighting a truck on fire at a Tacoma gas station with three people sitting inside, police say.
The driver suffered burns on his neck and singed hair. His two passengers were not injured.
“We’re dead. This truck is going to explode right now,” passenger Michael Collier told KIRO-TV he was thinking during the incident.
On Wednesday, Pierce County prosecutors charged a 54-year-old transient with three counts of attempted second-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson.
He refused to make a court appearance Wednesday and is scheduled to be arraigned Thursday.
Charging papers give this account:
Three BNSF Railway Company employees stopped at a gas station on Puyallup Avenue Tuesday to fill up their truck.
The driver inserted the nozzle into the tank and got back inside the truck. Moments later, she noticed a large fire near the back of the truck.
She tried to get out on her side but the flames were too large and too hot, so she and both passengers exited on the other side.
They spotted a man running from the parking lot as they escaped the blaze.
“She reported that she was afraid that the truck was going to explode, or that she and the other victims were going to ‘get burnt alive’ in the truck,” prosecutors wrote in court documents.
The backseat passenger told police he heard a noise like the nozzle being removed from the fuel tank, looked back and saw a man standing near the truck.
Neither passenger was injured, but both said the truck felt incredibly hot and they thought it was going to explode.
“I thought I was going to burn to death,” passenger Terry Klein told KIRO-TV.
Officers called to the scene looked at surveillance footage and saw a man walking toward the truck, then running away after a fire started.
Police said they believe the man doused the truck with gasoline before lighting it on fire.
Hours after the suspect’s photo was sent out to local law enforcement, a BNSF agent spotted a man matching the description and wearing the same clothes walking on Puyallup Avenue and took him into custody.
When told he was being arrested for an arson fire at a nearby gas station, the suspect replied, “Yes,” records say.
No motive was given.
This story was originally published January 30, 2020 at 11:33 AM.
