On Monday at 3:30 AM the arsonist targeted Pondside Realty Century 21,
owned by the Stamatos family. The fire destroyed his business,
killed his fish, then
spread through a strip damaging more businesses including Eleganzar
Clothing, Fantasy Nails salon, and an African hair-braiding shop /
clothing
store owned by Linda Barry.
A witness, the
neighbor to one Reggie Bell, claims to have seen a Molotov cocktail
hurled from the window of a dark green Chevrolet.
There have been four fires in JP businesses over the last 13
months. Mayor Thomas M. Menino said a serial arsonist is not
responsible for the four fires. However, commercial property
owners
believe that someone is targeting Jamaica Plain and the Fire Department
IS in fact hunting a serial arsonist in this case. Menino's
administration, which normally courts businesses and hates the Fire
Department, has been desperately trying to ward off an image of
incompetence in light of the unprecedented number of gang murders in
other parts of the city.
The Boston office of the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and
Explosives and the Boston Fire Department, have offered a $10,000
reward to anyone who gives information leading to the arsonists'
capture.
Scott Salman, spokesman for the Fire Department stated that at the time
of reporting little was known about the device or agent used to start
the fire..
Other "official arsons" include a previous fire that damaged seven
businesses along South Street including Maria’s Hair Fashion Store,
Jeannie Johnston's bar (destroyed) and five other businesses (damaged),
and a previous July 2005 fire that destroyed the Center Street
restaurant El Oriental de Cuba when it was firebombed with an
explosive. There was also a fire on August 17 a week before this one in
Forest Hills that destroyed a dentist's office and damaged a pizzeria,
a check casher's and an insurance agency.
Witnesses to the March arson (2:30 A.M. on Thursday-Friday 23-24th)
stated that a man threw an object through the window of the salon and
then ran down Center Street. Investigators say the object apparently
contained an accelerant (gasoline). Damages were tallied at
$500,000 and later $1,000,000.
Members of city hall are responding by getting someone to sell more
fire insurance to the afflicted businessmen.
A conspiracy theory about the arsonist was circulated by a JP woman
named Rhea, who claimed that the businesses were targeted by hostile
and invasive Anglo-Saxon market agents for being underperformers.
This is the socialists' conspiracy theory. But there is another
more likely theory:
In JP, teams of caucasian anarchist and socialist college students, who
are actually part of the trend of gentrification, view themselves as
pioneers, radicals, and opponents to gentrification in Jamaica
Plain. They would prefer that JP revert back to its 1970's heyday
of drug-dealing, arson and petty crime rather than see their prized
gay-socialist ghetto evolve into an affluent residential and commercial
district. Two local anarchist gangs, the Boston Anarchists and JP
Sluggers have members whose henchmen in the neo-soviet Industrial
Workers of the World, whose motto is "Direct Action Gets the Goods,"
and Northeast Federation of Anarchist Communists vandalized the
Somerville Theater during a wage dispute and then did laundered
reporting on the event which resulted in an investigation.
Local anarcho-communist networks, media centers, and infoshops, who
despise realtors and view successful Black and Latino capitalists as
sellouts, are notoriously loudmouthed in either their support or
outrage regarding local events of this nature. They are also
highly vocal regarding the minutiae of real or imagined injustices and
yet remain conspicuously silent on this event. Many of them, who
are currently on probation, now have an official policy not to discuss
actual criminal acts of eco-terror in progress or refer to them after
the fact. Firebombing remains one of the primary acts of alleged
bravado among revolutionary romantics although it is usually restricted
to one's own favorite venues and places of employment.
Also conspicuous, is that Boston Anarchist Black Cross, another
overlapping group which has previously reacted with savage outrage
against Boston Herald Police Bureau Chief Michele McPhee's reporting on
their trouble with Homeland Security, have not said a word regarding
her unspun reporting of the Molotov cocktail throwing incident which
took place in their den away from Harvard Square. Normally, they
brood and stamp and snort about these things.
