In the arson case selected, Forrest Gordon Clark is accused of setting the Cleveland National Forest, which spans to nearly 10,000 acres on fire. According to Del Real (2018), Clark may have set the forest on fire because of anger and outrage within Orange County, which, in turn, experienced unprecedented wildfires that prompted over 20,000 evacuations. Details of the case indicate that Clark may have been acting erratically and threatened some of his neighbors with fires, which was way before the wildfires began.
The case under the element of arson considering the details presented that suggests that Clark may have been involved in starting the fires willfully. Canter & Alison (2018) indicate that for a case to be deemed as arson, the defendant must have acted willfully or maliciously, resulting in the starting of a fire. In this case, Clark’s threats and erratic behaviors suggest that he may have been involved in starting the wildfires that had a significant impact affecting many of the people within Orange County.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Clark’s possible motives for starting the fires include anger and outrage towards his neighbors, which may have prompted him towards making the decision to start fires that would burn down his neighbors’ houses. It is not clear why he may have been provoked towards deciding to start a fire that would most likely have affected him too. However, the extent of the damage may have exceeded overall expectations because the fire spread beyond Clark’s control; thus, resulting in a situation where it burned down a significant part of Cleveland National Forest.
Information collected from the neighbors regarding Clark’s threats and erratic behaviors just before wildfires were reported as the main reasons he is being charged with arson. Additionally, CCTV footage from the scene where the fires are thought to have started from show Clark, who at the time did not have a shirt on, with his neighbors houses on fire. Police believe that he may have actualized his threats to set his neighbor’s houses on fire, which may have the devastation the county is experiencing.
The case has not been determined to date, considering that Clark was arrested in August 2018. However, he remains in Orange County jail with his bail set at $1 million, which he was unable to raise. Prosecutors are involved in providing evidence that they believe is important in proving that indeed Clark may have been involved in the fires. Prosecutors also rely on witness testimonies with most of the witnesses being Clark’s former neighbors, who were affected by the fires that Clark is believed to have begun.
Although the case has not been determined, my view on it is that Clark may have had a role in the fires considering that he had issued threats to his neighbors on the possibility of fires. Additionally, his house was not affected by the fire, which affected a significant number of his neighbors before spreading into the forest. From this point of view, it can be argued that, indeed, Clark may have taken a vantage point in ensuring that the fire does not affect his house.
In my view, I believe that the case could have taken a positive turn if Clark’s neighbors had reported the threats to the relevant authorities way beforehand. Information on the case indicates that most of his neighbors ignored the threats believing that he was not capable of setting fire to a neighborhood he lived in. Had they reported the threats, the police would have been in a much better position of preventing the possibility of fires with the aim being to ensure overall safety for all persons.
References
Canter, D. V., & Alison, L. J. (2018). The contribution of psychological research to arson investigation. In Profiling property crimes (pp. 157-194). Routledge.
Del Real, J. A. (2018). Man charged with arson in southern California’s Holy Fire. The New York Times . https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/09/us/california-wildfires-arson.html
