Meet Shervin Lalezary, the Beverly Hills attorney who works for $1 a year as a Sheriff’s reserve deputy at the West Hollywood Station by night.
“He is a true hero,” Sheriff Lee Baca said at a news conference Monday night when officials announced the identity of the suspect – Hollywood resident Harry Burkhart – in the four-night 53-arson spree that wreaked terror on residents of West Hollywood, Hollywood and other areas of Los Angeles.
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Lalezary – who just qualified to ride solo last month and had gone beyond his 8-hour shift – saw Burkhart’s blue Dodge Caravan minivan on Sunset Blvd and Fairfax Ave. in front of the Rite Aid around 3 a.m. Monday morning and connected it with new information issued by the Joint Task Force. Federal immigration authorities recognized the German-born Burkhart from the surveillance video released by the LAPD of the “person of interest” in the case and promptly told the task force. Burkhart had apparently gotten upset when the feds threatened his disabled mother with deportation. Burkhart lived with his mother and his wife in an apartment at Sunset and Fuller. Law enforcement officials were looking for Burkhart and his minivan for a few hours before Lalezary spotted the car and pulled it over. He was immediately joined by two LAPD officers who helped detain Burkhart with the LASD, during which they found materials that could be used to start fires in his car.
“It was a great relief to know people can sleep — be they officers, firefighters, the residents of West Hollywood as well as me” said Lalezary.
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“I feel very good that we’ve got the right guy. [The suspect] had the right stuff in his van, and we are confident in the arrest,” LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said. But an arrest is not prosecution and prosecution is not conviction, he added, noting that arson cases are very hard cases to win. Because it’s an on-going investigation – they are sorting through at least 100 clues – officials declined to release much information and caution people that there still may be accomplices or copycats out there.
Burkhart, 24, is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at the downtown L.A. jail. ”He is the most dangerous arsonist in Los Angeles County that I can recall,” Baca said.
The LAPD also arrested Samuel Arrington, 22, of Sun Valley, for a string of four fires set Thursday – but those fires are unrelated to those allegedly set by Burkhart.
View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.
“Our long four-day nightmare is over,” LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said at the news conference. Yaroslavsky lives near the Fairfax District, which was also a target of the arsonist who officials say caused more than $2 million in damages. Luckily no one was killed and only one firefighter and one civilian were slightly injured.
West Hollywood Mayor John Duran said the four days and nights of terror were a “test run” for a possible terrorist attack and it was good to see how people responded, with neighbors helping neighbors. LA City Councilmember Tom LaBonge echoed the sentiment, but compared it to a possible massive earthquake.
There were no arson fires reported Monday night and into Tuesday morning – though police sirens, fire truck horns and helicopters still cut through the air upon occasion, reminding some of us shell-shocked residents of the four days and nights of terror wondering when it would be our turn to be hit by fire.
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