NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Video released by the NYPD on Wednesday shows the terrifying moment an arsonist set fire to a Brooklyn LGBTQ+ bar last weekend.
According to police, at 9:20 p.m. Sunday, an unidentified man entered the Rash Bar at 941 Willoughby Avenue in Bushwick and poured gasoline on the floor, lit it and then fled the scene to parts unknown.
Two victims, a 25-year-old woman and a 23-year-old woman, who were inside of the location at the time of the incident, suffered minor burns to their shoulders and about their bodies and were transported to Wyckoff Hospital in stable condition.
Co-owner Jake Sillen told 1010 WINS' Brigitte Quinn on Wednesday that while the NYPD has not labeled the arson as a hate crime, "without any concrete evidence," it does appear to look like "something in that direction."
"The police are trying to do the most thorough investigation they can, and we really just have to go with them," he said.
Sillen said the suspect, who police say is around 20 to 30 years of age, 5'9" tall and weighing 180 pounds, slipped inside the bar without "anyone really noticing."
"Nobody that got a glimpse of him recognized him as a past customer, although he had a mask, he had a hoodie. ... He was a kind of age and demographic that you could see at our space," he added.
Before setting the blaze, the co-owner said a security guard approached the suspect as he started pouring gasoline on the ground pretending to be a cleaner pouring water.
"He struck a match and he dropped it onto the floor and set the whole bottle on fire," Sillen said.
He told WINS that the fact that a performer and an employee who were injured were able to make it out alive with treatable turns is "a miracle."
"We're so grateful that this didn't happen later in the night because we were going to have up to hundreds of people in that space," Sillen said. "And we're just so lucky that it was only the crowd that was in there and not so much more."
The bar is temporarily closed for now with "severe damage" inside.
"It's charred on the inside," he added.
A GoFundMe launched to raise $200,000 "to support everyone directly affected, our staff who will be out of work for the foreseeable future, and eventually the repair of the space" has so far raised over $65,000.
Anyone with information in regard to this incident is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS.
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