Park Blaze Suspect Wields Butane Lighter Against Police: Police

EAST BAY, CA — An arson investigation at a popular shoreline park escalated into a struggle after officers tracked down a man suspected of lighting grass on fire, leading to a tense arrest involving projectiles and a butane lighter.

Smoke rising from a shoreline grass fire in at the Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Shoreline quickly turned into a confrontation when officers cornered a man accused of starting the blaze and watched the encounter spiral into a struggle beside the burned field.

Officers with the East Bay Regional Park District Police Department were responding to reports of a man using a lighter to ignite grass at the site.

With aid from the department’s Eagle 7 air support unit, officers located the man nearby and tried to arrest him.

Police said the man became aggressive during the encounter, threw objects at officers, resisted attempts to restrain him, and tried to use a butane lighter against them.

Officers deployed "less-lethal force" and eventually subdued the man.

Investigators said a witness later identified the suspect as the person responsible for setting the grass fire.

Authorities also discovered the man had an active felony warrant and was already on county probation connected to a false imprisonment case.

Fire crews contained and extinguished the blaze before it spread farther through the shoreline vegetation.