Obama inspired hate...

The Latest on a man charged with setting a massive fire that destroyed an unfinished Los Angeles apartment complex (all times local):

3:10 p.m.

A man has been ordered to stand trial for arson over a fire that incinerated a Los Angeles apartment building and caused $100 million in damage.

Fifty-seven-year-old Dawud Abdulwali appeared in court Wednesday. He earlier pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say Abdulwali set fire to the unfinished De Vinci complex downtown in December 2014. The seven-story complex was completely destroyed and the heat blew out windows at nearby office towers.

At Wednesday’s hearing, a witness testified that Abdulwali bragged at a party about burning the building and said he did it because he was angry about the police killing of an unarmed black man in Missouri.Via: Houston Chronicle

The witness, Popaul Tshimanga, said he and Abdulwali attended a party a week later. Tshimanga said Abdulwali ranted about the August 2014 killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri.

“He was mad,” Tshimanga said, adding that the defendant said “he burned the building” near a freeway and “didn’t like the way the cops were killing black people.”

Abdulwali’s former roommate, Edwyn Gomez, has told investigators that Abdulwali spoke passionately about the protests in Ferguson after Brown’s shooting and about wanting vengeance.

“Cops kill my people,” Gomez recalled Abdulwali saying. “We should go do this, we should go burn some (expletive) down. … We should go break some windows.” Houston Chronicle

Watch incredible footage of firefighters risking their lives to put out this massive arson fire:

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.


We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.