Hot pursuit

Police have arrested and charged three suspects behind separate arson attacks on Tesla cars and charging stations across the United States.

Among those arrested was one person who allegedly threw eight Molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon, the US Justice Department said in a news release, NBC News reports.

Also arrested was a person suspected of igniting Tesla charging stations with Molotov cocktails in Charleston, South Carolina.

The third suspect was arrested in Loveland, Colorado for allegedly trying to light Tesla vehicles on fire with Molotov cocktails.

On 18 March, an armed person fired on vehicles at a Tesla Collision Center in Las Vegas, spray-painted the word “RESIST” on the center’s door and set the cars on fire with Molotov cocktails damaging at least five units.

The attacks were believed provoked by Tesla owner Elon Musk’s mass firing of federal workers as a policy of the administration of President Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, a very angry man from Rockford, Michigan burned down not a car but a house all the way in Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

The 5 a.m. arson attack on 10 February almost killed several occupants of the house, according to Bensalem police. Two pet dogs were killed while the six adult occupants escaped from the 2-story house before it completely burned down, ABC News reports.

A neighbor’s security camera caught the suspect’s black car and this helped investigators trace its route. Intersection cameras recorded the Volkswagen Passat and one camera that had an automated license plate reader identified the car’s owner as Brian Jones of Rockford, Michigan, according to ABC News.

Police raided Jones’s house and arrested Harrison Jones, who also lived there. They learned that Harrison Jones was the ex-boyfriend of a Michigan girl whom a male resident of the burned Pennsylvania house was communicating with and planned to meet in Bensalem soon.

The suspect apparently drove over 700 miles and 11 hours from Michigan to Pennsylvania, and back, “to commit a crime that nearly cost six people their lives,” ABC News quoted investigators as saying.

Harrison Jones is now facing charges of attempted criminal homicide, arson and risking catastrophe.