Prosecutors say arson suspect in Los Angeles' Palisades Fire was angry 'at the world'

Absolutely. This is not class based, it’s f*** everyone who isn’t me. F*** them for not being single, f*** them for not inviting me to a party, f*** them for not being my friend despite the constant crazy shit I say, f*** them for being fit and healthy, etc. This guy wanted everyone to suffer.

> my experience in a paramilitary work environment Sorry what

its just intellectually lazy

Yeah rebuilding doesn’t do shit for the countless family heirlooms and memories that were lost in those fires.

Not solid at all. Motive and intent are two different things. Motive can help corroborate proof of intent, but it's wholly unnecessary. The reason you do something is largely immaterial to the fact of whether or not you did it (except for things like self defense). Whether he set the fire because he was angry, or because he got sexual pleasure from watching shit burn, or wanted to see Seth Rogan lose his house, it really doesn't matter if they can otherwise prove it was him who set the fire. Criminal law has elements and the prosecution has the burden to show each element is met by the facts beyond a reasonable doubt. Motive is not an element of, afaik, any crime. Disproving the prosecution's alleged motive isn't going to hurt the prosecution's case. In California, arson requires showing that "he or she willfully and maliciously sets fire to or burns or causes to be burned or who aids, counsels, or procures the burning of, any structure, forest land, or property." All the prosecution has to prove is that Rinderknecht set the fire with the purpose of setting a fire and it caused the resulting fire damage. Sorry, just did my criminal law exam in law school, couldn't help myself. edit: reading the article, "Prosecutors say Rinderknecht started a fire on Jan. 1 that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up a week later." Now *that* is where you try to make some reasonable doubt. Fire science is pretty good at tracing this stuff, though, so probably won't succeed if this is what the fire investigators found.

Angry people will eventually organize once there’s a critical mass. Then that anger gets directed at specific sources.

"angry at the world" is pretty vague though. More likely that they are the problem. Eternal-victim mentality is an epidemic in US right now

Yeah the social contract exists for a reason. People can only be pushed so far

Health care ceos should write this down

“If you won’t pay us enough to live, at least pay us enough not to do this.”

Do what that guy did in the warehouse if you wanna strike back at the people making the world this way. Not the innocent people who just live somewhere you decided needs to be screwed.

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Sure, but wildfires ain’t it. Data centers otoh…

They have cellphone data that shows he was the only one in the area where the fire was started. He also tried to lie to investigators about being there. Maybe it's not a slam dunk case but if *someone* started it he seems like the obvious culprit. We'll see how the trial goes I guess.

Don't know why the article left it off but there is a ton of evidence all stemming from his cell phone logs (the local logs are what nabbed him because he basically called multiple times while walking away from the burn site at its starting time with other cell logs from witnesses passing him as he was leaving It was all in the press release > At 12:12 a.m. on January 1, 2025, environmental sensing platforms indicated the Lachman Fire had begun. During the next five minutes, Rinderknecht called 911 several times, but didn’t get through because his iPhone was out of cellphone range. When he finally connected with 911, he was at the bottom of the hiking trail and reported the fire. By that point, a nearby resident already had reported the fire to authorities. > Rinderknecht then fled in his car, passing fire engines driving in the opposite direction. He then turned around and followed the fire engines to the scene, driving at a high rate of speed. Rinderknecht walked up the same trail from earlier that night to watch the fire and the firefighters. At approximately 1:02 a.m., he used his iPhone to take more videos of the scene. > During an interview with law enforcement on January 24, 2025, Rinderknecht lied about where he was when he first saw the Lachman Fire. He claimed he was near the bottom of a hiking trail when he first saw the fire and called 911, but geolocation data from his iPhone carrier showed that he was standing in a clearing 30 feet from the fire as it rapidly grew.

Before you get into a tiff, the prosecution really needs to be ironclad and it doesn’t appear there is much actual evidence on him. I get you want to pin all this on someone, but you can’t just assume guilt and assign blame

Uh no thank you

If driving erratically and angry at the world is there only evidence then half the county is "guilty"

the feds have geolocation info of the suspect standing at the fire's origin at the exact time of ignition, and he had a bbq lighter in his car. And given his pyro obsession (he dragged his gf to film another wildfire-scarred community in SoCal a couple yrs back) it shows his state of mind. Is it absolute proof that he's the arson who started the blaze on Jan 1st and not illegal fireworks? That's up to a jury to decide. But if he's guilty of setting the first blaze he definitely bears some responsibility for its reignition the following week when gale-force winds were howling through the canyons.

He's a ultimately a coward.

They have evidence he set the initial fire that there is testimony was fully out, so proving the fire a week later is the same as the first one is going to be an uphill battle. Thats all the commenter is saying, we can all infer hes responsible but it needs to be proven beyond a reasonable doubt and with conflicting testimony from firefighters thats gonna be hard.

Good point and I'm not advocating on his behalf. Just pointing out a double standard.