Man Faces Hate Crime Charge After Fires Lit Around Fairfield
FAIRFIELD (CBS13) – A man is suspected of starting three small fires in Fairfield, including one right in front of the police department.
The incidents started late Thursday night. Fairfield police say a small propane canister was lit on fire and exploded in front of the police department's windows.
Investigators believe the man also tried to do the same thing at an apartment complex along North Texas Street. He's also suspected of trying to light a car on fire, police say.
Police say someone threw an incendiary device through and window and into an apartment around 10 p.m. Thursday. Two people were inside the apartment at the time.
Crews managed put out the fire and no one was hurt in the incident.
Later that night, authorities responded to a car fire on Thames Court.
Then, early Friday morning, the Fairfield Police Department's lobby was hit.
The man, identified as 39-year-old Fairfield resident Matthew Scott Jones, was arrested near the original crime scene and is now booked at Solano County Jail.
Investigators say Jones had allegedly been acting erratically over the past month and had been hurling racial epithets at the two people who lived in the apartment where the first incendiary device was thrown.
Jones is facing charges of attempted murder, committing a hate crime, possessing a destructive device,