Authorities in Maryland have arrested a former police chief and charged him with arson and attempted murder in a string of fires that investigators say stretched across nearly a decade.
On Wednesday, officials arrested David Crawford, 69, the former police chief of Laurel, on several attempted murder charges. According to NBC News, the Prince George’s County Fire Department said the fires happened between 2011 and 2020 and involved vehicles, homes and residential garages.
NBC reports that investigators say the fires were set early in the morning by a person in a hooded sweatshirt who carried gasoline jugs, used a stick wrapped in cloth to light the fires and then left in a silver sedan. Authorities said the person was captured on camera.
Police say the case stalled until 2020, when investigators found a link between the victims that led them to Crawford. According to NBC, authorities say the victims all had a dispute with him and included a former Laurel city official, current and former law enforcement officials, two relatives, two former doctors and a neighbor.
The fires were reported in Howard, Montgomery, Prince George’s and Frederick counties. Police are also looking at him in connection with a March 2019 fire in Charles County that spread to a nearby home where a family was sleeping.
No attorney was listed for Crawford at the time of the arrest, and he has not been convicted of anything. He retired from the Laurel police force in 2019 and said at the time that it was for personal reasons.
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