Man set two fires in Tacoma, including at Freighthouse Square. Now he’s off to prison
A 32-year-old man has been sentenced to prison for starting two separate fires, including one in 2023 outside the historic Freighthouse Square in Tacoma.
Jabari Ahkiel Jones pleaded guilty to first-degree arson and first-degree reckless burning in Pierce County Superior Court on Thursday. He was sentenced to six years, five months in prison, court records show.
Jones was seen on surveillance video stacking wood and garbage on the south side of the more than 110-year-old Freighthouse Square building on March 8, 2023. The fire burned a wall up to the roof, leaving char marks and causing about $20,000 in damage, charging documents show.
Sounder commuter train staff and passengers were inside the building when the fire started at about 4:15 a.m., but no one was injured, prosecutors wrote.
Jones was arrested a week later for the fire when a tipster recognized him from a Crime Stopper bulletin. He initially faced a first-degree arson charge for the Freighthouse Square fire, and he was later linked to a July 2021 fire and explosion in the 900 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Way. That fire caused $15,000 worth of damage. Jones was later charged with first-degree reckless burning for the incident, court records show.
A man believed to be the defendant lit a piece of cardboard on fire and tossed it under the crawl space of a business, prosecutors wrote. The person walked away and returned with what looked like a water bottle a half-hour later, records state. He poured the contents onto the fire, which caused the explosion.
A business called Site Workshop has an office in the area where the fire took place. The fire was small but caused smoke damage, Becky Handshew, operations director the company, said in a March 20 News Tribune story.
Jones has several felony convictions in Pierce County. He pleaded guilty in October 2022 to second-degree theft for stealing items from a vacant building in Tacoma. In June 2022, he was sentenced for second-degree assault for shooting a person at a homeless encampment in August 2021 under Interstate 705, court records show.
The fire at Freighthouse Square spread to the building’s interior, but most businesses were able to open the same day. The building’s owner, Brian Borgelt, said at the time that it was the eighth arson at the building in the last four years.
“This on top of many other destructive acts has caused irreversible harm to many families who are trying to make a living and lead productive lives, “ Borgelt said in a statement to the court in March 2023.
