Sharpton's office on fire
From cut on the bias
A news bulletin on WABC 770 in NYC just said that Al Sharpton's NYC office building is on fire - it's a two-alarm fire, so that means it's not just a trashcan someone tossed a cigarette into. According to the report, the fire began on the second floor of the three-floor building; Sharpton's office is on the second floor.
Sharpton filed yesterday to make his candidacy for President official.
So... accidental fire? Set fire? If set, who did it?
Best case scenario, of course, is accidental. I'll keep you posted.
UPDATE: The fire went to three alarms, but is apparently now under control. Rumblings of "arson" are getting louder. Sharpton is in Washington, but his spokesperson said he was "concerned." Well, yeah.
UPDATE: Okay, it was two alarm after all. The fire started at 8:30 a.m., and was out by 9:30 a.m. According to the fire department, the entire second floor was destroyed. That had both Sharpton's non-profit civil-rights group headquarters, and his Harlem presidential campaign headquarters.
UPDATE: Here's the local television reports on it: CBS, NBC, ABC. The ABC station also has a set of photographs of the scene, which shows smoke coming through the roof in a few places. One of the TV stations said the fire was confined to a "reception area", but if so it must have been pretty fierce at some point to get smoke up through the third floor and out the roof.
And why do I care that Sharpton's building has burned? Well, other than a reflexive sympathy for anyone who's burned out, I'm mainly intrigued by the possibility of arson. So we shall see.
End quote.
I agree, arson would be a logical inference. However, at 8:30 a.m. on a Wednesday, there ought to be someone in the office so the question really is: Was it an inside job?
