Kitsap County deputies say a bizarre and dangerous encounter played out on a quiet Port Orchard street this week, and thankfully, a home security camera caught most of it. According to the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office, a 47-year-old man drove up to a residence on a golf cart on August 4th, dog riding shotgun, and proceeded to set the homeowner’s garage on fire using a torch and what’s believed to be some kind of spray accelerant.
The footage reportedly shows the man walking up to the garage door frame and igniting it directly, and within minutes the fire had grown into a fully involved blaze. The homeowner was inside at the time and had no idea what was happening outside, let alone why. He escaped unharmed, but the damage tells its own story: officials estimate $150,000 to $175,000 in structural damage, plus a vehicle worth roughly $25,000 that didn’t survive the flames.
What really pushes this from “random act of vandalism” into “you can’t make this up” territory is what happened next. A neighbor who witnessed the fire confronted the suspect, and rather than running off or explaining himself, the man reportedly claimed he was with the fire department. Considering he was the one holding a lit torch at the time, that explanation didn’t exactly hold up. When the neighbor pressed further, the suspect allegedly tried to run him over with the golf cart before deputies were able to take him into custody…