Fire at home of firefighter who received racial threats under investigation - Buffalo News Live

I assume from your comment below the link, you've already made up your mind that this was a hate crime. What needs to stop is irresponsible speculation. It fuels racial animus from what may be a purely unintentional fire. The firefighter victim himself said maybe it was something they left on.

Before we assume this is racist violence, how about we let the fire investigators do their job. In very short order we will know if it was arson or unintentional. Why don't we wait at least until then to label it a hate crime?

As a volunteer firefighter, I can tell you that based on comments within the article the scale is already tipping toward unintentional. Arson fires, set in multiple family residences, when a person is at home, generally involve the use of accelerants and build very rapidly. Building codes require that the walls between separate dwelling units have established burn times. Arson fires produce enough toxic gases, smoke, and heat that they are either discovered by the occupants or kill the occupants before the burn time is reached and neighbors become aware that there is a fire. In this case, neighbors alerted the victim of the fire. That would most likely indicate a relatively slow growing fire not fueled by accelerants.

It is a volunteer fire Department. I guarantee you they don't have their own fire investigator in that department. A cover up is very unlikely. It will be someone from a different agency, with no ability to determine who from that agency would be the primary investigator. In my state the Fire investigator is actually a member of the Michigan State Police.

I'll reserve judgment until all the facts are known. If this is as advertised, it's pretty f'd up, and the perp needs a nice long vacation with bars.

Not pointing fingers, but it is kind of suspisous.