welcome back to me the politics and david packard and things to deal with
this is mary sue rose from northampton media dot com thanks for being here
it's pleasure to be here
so if you're here now under the best of circumstances there's a story north
hampton massachusetts which is where we do our show doesn't always make
national news
actually can't remember the last time
it did you do you remember
well we do have the gay pride
marcher every year wish to seem to attract a certain amount of national
media attention it uh... and did you cover that
you know you in a small way
but but not in the same way that that we've been covering the arson
so what we have here is what the lack of a better term are calling a possible
serial arsonist and what kind of go into a little bit of the back story of
fires in northampton
pond last saturday i woke up and uh... i live in what's called board three in
north hampton northampton za small city and pipe noticed it was very foggy but i
didn't think what really twice about it until i found out on face book that
there have been with the latest count eleven sixteen seventeen fire so it's a
little hard to to determine exactly what the characters do carro three fires if
two cars in the same garage were torched comp
what they're saying sixteen seventeen fires total
palace structure and vehicle fires and these were
of a large part of the more within this kind of uh... quarter-mile radius i
would say and then v all of them were within is it a half-mile one-mile half
mile radius within tab close to downtown north hampton
all happening within about seventy five minutes between wanting to entirely
clear to aaron and three fifteen and what we did what we know about this is
that they are
were a combination of structural
and vehicle fires correct we don't know whether these were set by one person by
a group of people we don't know if they were on foot what we do know is that
they were mentioned on cnn msnbc fox news
um... then interview may not know this mary but louis here
lewis's middle name mates may remind you of someone else louis bugger motown midi
this is jerry but uh... i think that it's he's jerry but there's nothing you
he says he's jerry but his cousin out-and-out we camera seem to agree on
what it is jerry bugger habbo what's his role in jerry but there is the president
of the board three neighborhood association right
and jerry bugger has served as our
roth for people during this crisis he's answered hundreds and hundreds of
e-mails and telephone calls
cents the fires occurred he's exhausted he told me he hasn't got any sleep is it
really was on fox news guy he's been all over the news yet and
he so against so so where does this stand now i guess we'll start and then
what kind of backtrack into the history of arson in north hampton a little bit
short of the district attorney is in charge of the investigation
and she is releasing very very little information let me back up a little bit
she has actually delegated investigation
to her assistant district attorney michael kale and hero he wanted to be
here today but he had to be in in uh... in court actually were as we film now
mhm that he probably wouldn't tell you very much they're they're being very
quiet over at the district attorney's office they're releasing very little
information and this is all under the guise of if we might somehow
hurt the investigation if we say too much is that basically what's being said
correct that's their reasoning
and we've heard that from everybody from kinda liza rise to a broken solace and
alberto gonzalez
he actually did not only wasn't going to say he just didn't remember everything
from whether his parents were here legally to who it we won't get into hand
but
so we'll people are used to this right this essentially what's different now
there seems to be a lot of complaining about we're not hearing enough
well i can respect the district attorney's decision
to keep the details of the of the investigation mom
ike ike and respect that guided by you know that some of my colleagues in the
media have been very critical of the d_a_'s office but
i'd i'm i'm not going to go there i'd i think that they have valid reasons for
keeping the lid on the investigation and this would be i read a couple of
postings on dust some national blog saying that this would be
this number of fires whatever it is twelve yr sixteen or seventeen would be
a big deal
in a big city
right ai barb
we have a lot of listeners in philadelphia and nashville were on tv on
the whole cities then we get emails from them saying
here when we had two fires in one night
it was a huge deal so
how can we put in brisket in perspective fifteen or so fires in a city of the
size it's very difficult to put it into perspective people are starved people
are still started
it's difficult to to wrap your mind around
the enormity of what happened on in the early morning hours of december twenty
seventh here in northampton massachusetts and to go back a little
bit
what is the kind of the history over the last five years of fires or arson that
have been suspicious about her something within towards straight which is a
neighborhood within the city of north hampton there have been
and history of suspicious fires
a lot of vehicle fires
some house fires
and
and i'm not really sure i hit but please chief sink awaits has said that uh...
in the past he said that they knew did some of them
past our sins but that that person is no longer in the area
i don't think there was ever any real
conclusive them
solution
to to understanding the causes of of the cyst wires and were three in the past so
is there something about
setting things on fire that lends itself to the type of place northampton is
is there something about north hampton that lends itself to people wanting to
set things on fire mean where where desired i don't think so
i think that there is
an opportunity here because it's a walkable likable city
the neighborhoods are all fashion nineteenth-century neighborhoods
my first thought
when i saw the google maps of some citizens had put together with little
dots were each of the fires have occurred by press dot was that somebody
had on this on a bicycle and why just because of where they were and your
knowledge of the area sure i know how fast you can move around this town on a
bicycle
focused so and then what more rethink about that then
is the inclination that within one person on a bicycle and it's a lot of
ground to cover an israeli underwrite
just aren't just the bipartisan take that long no it doesn't it doesn't but i
did read a profile of you don't have
online somebody posted at
and something to add to the federal side which had a psychological profile of a
typical arson estimates are there different types of arsonists
there is the single person who is disaffected who might be up
very secretive
but then there are other types of arsons where you have a maybe a small group of
young men
allen it's it's really impossible to say at this point you know when i first saw
i'm on some of the same list serves that i'm sure you are
is being a resident of of the city
i solve all of this talk about the psychological psychological profile and
at the same time i'm reading right now a crime fiction book there's a pattern of
you've heard of curtain wall inder
if the sun it's that series of crime fiction
written in sweden
and right now in the book there doing this kind of psychological analysis to
find a serial killer
and in the book they talk about how useless this psychological profile or
that they brought in his life and my inclination was what does this list of
typical characteristics going to do to help find
whoever the perpetrator is here do you think there's any validity
i'm not sure i'm not sure i do know that but
that this investigative task force has been all over town
there if they're you know in people's backyards
arts they're in the bike path a ride on the railroad tracks they're looking for
evidence everywhere
and i'm sure they're questioning a lot of people
i'm not sure that simply having a psychological profile of the typical
arsonist both will really be helpful both elite lewis and i in our in our
history years ago a twenty years ago
we used to set some some off fires but they were you know in my backyard and it
was just the ferns and cotton or something like that should and lewis
might fit the profile of the serial arsonist to achi
but i would i would be surprise i know he didn't do any other the police
wouldn't be knocking on his door so i think that those profiles could be a
little deceiving today not louis
i suppose
you know who going out of a first thing about it
there enough good
i guess my point here is that
there seems to be a lot of ways the investigation could go and as individual
citizens who are now
being
incredibly obsessed with cameras must put cameras everywhere and let's figure
out
hard drives and so on and so forth right exactly and some people are concerned
factor will be sacrificing
to civil liberties in the name of trying to secure ourselves what's a classic
debate anything out about security versus convenience absolutely it's the
same debate in fact that we that we're talking about with abdul mikaela dan
this
plane attempted plane bombing which is
well we can do a lot more but how much convenience if you want to give up
and it's not clear in a place like northampton
how much convenience people want to get off the ground convenience
simply the right to walk down the street in the middle of the night if you want
to go to the seven-eleven you know if you do you want to feel free to to move
within the city without being
looked at and analyzed and tanto you know
under suspicion