Sonoma sheriff shoots down right-wing reports linking arson suspect to wine country fires
BY RYAN SABALOW
rsabalow@sacbee.com
OCTOBER 17, 2017 12:35 PM
The arrest of a 29-year-old Latino man this weekend on suspicion of starting a small fire in California’s scorched wine country ignited a firestorm of its own on right-wing media sites whose articles linked him – without evidence – to the catastrophic fires that have killed at least 28 people in the area.
Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano forcefully shot down the allegations at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
“There is a story out there that he’s the arsonist in these fires,” Giordano said. “That’s not the case. There’s no indication he’s related to these fires at all. ... I wanted to kill that speculation right now, so we didn’t have things running too far out of control.”
Right-wing websites including Breitbart and InfoWars Tuesday each published stories on the Sunday arrest of Jesus Fabian Gonzales, whom sheriff’s deputies arrested on a single count of arson.
When CNBC has the story; it’s pretty mainstream !
The maps I have seen show multiple fires, several miles apart, that started nearly simultaneously. One homeless guy cannot be responsible for that.
But, but, see, he was carrying around a fire extinquisher. Don't all homeless guys carry fire extinquishers? Proof positive he's not an arsonist. Right, huh?