New Orleans police have arrested a suspect they say set eight cars on fire in the Bywater over the weekend.
According to Mayor Helena Moreno, police apprehended Kyle Thomsen, 35, and booked him on four counts of aggravated arson and nine counts of aggravated arson. Both Moreno and Fire Chief Roman Nelson say Thomsen could face more charges.
"We're looking at it as an act of domestic terrorism," Nelson said during a Wednesday media briefing.
"To me, this was a way of really creating chaos, fear, and really terrorizing a neighborhood, and we're not going to stand for that in the city of New Orleans," Moreno said.
Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said Thomsen lives only a few blocks away from where he allegedly set the car fires. According to Kirkpatrick, her officers initially went to Thomsen's home on Tuesday night to arrest him on a warrant for domestic battery. When they executed that warrant, Kirkpatrick says they found evidence of the arsons.
"When we went into his home, we found the clothes that he was wearing, and that's when we converted it to the charges associated with the arson," Kirkpatrick said.
Mayor Helena Moreno says the work of local, state, and federal investigators and tips from the public all helped authorities make an arrest within 48 hours of the crime.
"Thank you to all the partners you see here," Moreno said. "You were able to ensure that we caught this person very quickly."
Police are still working to discover a motive and if anyone else was involved in the arsons. However, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Michael Harrison says investigators believe Thomsen worked alone.
"Investigators will continue to ascertain and work to see if there were accomplices or more people," Harrison said. "Right now, there is now information to support that there was anyone other than this one person."
Kirkpatrick says these arsons and a recent spate of car break-ins in the Central Business District are not indicators of a spike in crime in the city.
"We're just two (or) three weeks now into the new year," Kirkpatrick said. "We haven't seen trends of an uptick necessarily in that arena."
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