A massive fire at a Southern California warehouse was allegedly sparked by a man who compared himself to Luigi Mangione, the man accused of executing a health care CEO.
The conflagration on Tuesday completely destroyed a 1.2 million-square-foot warehouse and caused over half a billion dollars in damages, according to a statement from Bill Essayli, the first assistant United States attorney for the Central District of California.
‘We will not tolerate political activists who resort to violence to advance their ideology.’
Video later surfaced showing the alleged arsonist lighting fires inside the warehouse while mocking the company for not paying its employees enough to live on.
“If you’re not going to pay us enough to f**king live or afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this s**t,” the man records himself saying as he lights packages of toilet paper on fire.
The concept of a “living wage” is one extolled by left-wing activists including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
On Friday, Essayli said there was other evidence pointing to a political motivation for the alleged arsonist, who was identified as 29-year-old Chamel Abdulkarim of Highland.
“Abdulkarim filmed himself setting merchandise on fire inside the warehouse and made statements criticizing capitalism and large corporations,” Essayli wrote. “He also compared himself to accused murderer Luigi Mangione.”
Mangione allegedly shot and killed UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on the streets of Manhattan in Dec. 2024. The shooting was caught on surveillance video and became a cause célèbre for far-left critics of capitalism.
Essayli said Abdulkarim was charged with “arson of a building used in interstate and foreign commerce and used in activities affecting interstate and foreign commerce.” If convicted, Abdulkarim faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
He included the video that Abdulkarim allegedly recorded of himself lighting the fires.
There were no injuries from the fire.
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One worker at the warehouse said he did not suspect Abdulkarim at all and believed the robots were to blame for the fire.
“There was no suspicion that it was him; actually he was missing. So everyone was trying to find him,” Alex Montero of San Bernardino said to KABC-TV. “Everyone was blaming the robots at first. We were almost 100% sure it was the robots until the action in the video, of course.”
“We will not tolerate political activists who resort to violence to advance their ideology,” Essayli added.
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