Ontario, California — Detectives are examining a video posted on social media as part of their investigation into a massive operation A warehouse fire broke out early Tuesday This morning in Ontario, California.
Fire investigators say the video appears to show instances of toilet paper being set on fire inside a warehouse, while a person repeatedly says he is not being paid enough to live on.
“If you’re not going to pay us enough to (expletive) live or afford to live, at least pay us enough so we don’t,” the person in the video says.
Police arrested 29-year-old Shamil Abdul Karim on suspicion of felony arson. Authorities say he was working at a Kimberly-Clark distribution center through an outside company at the time. Investigators say they are reviewing the video but have not confirmed whether the person shown in the footage is Abdul Karim.
One of the suspect’s colleagues told reporters that he had just met Abdul Karim moments before the fire broke out, and said there was initially no doubt about his involvement.
“There was no doubt it was him, in fact he was missing,” said Alex Montero of San Bernardino. “So everyone was trying to find him. Everyone was blaming the robots at first. We were almost 100% sure it was the robots until the event in the video of course.”
The fire, which broke out shortly after 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, destroyed the more than 1 million square foot facility. Fire crews were able to contain the fire in the building, and no injuries were reported. The warehouse was full of paper products from familiar brands like Kleenex and Huggies diapers.
Fire officials said arson was suspected almost immediately due to how quickly the fire spread within the facility. Ontario Fire Chief Mike Gerken described the fire’s behavior as unusual.
“It certainly was an uncharacteristic fire, just the behavior of the fire they were encountering inside and the rapid spread of that fire in such a large building, to move so quickly — it certainly pushed our firefighters into that defensive operation, and that was one indicator that it was likely arson in nature,” Gerken said.
In the final clip of the video, the warehouse corridor appears to be engulfed in flames as the person recorded says: “Here’s your stock.”
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