FIREBUG STRIKES LINCOLN PARK
LINCOLN PARK NEWSLETTER — A pride flag, a trash can and more were set ablaze in and around Lincoln Park. Neighbors rally to support pride flag victims. Did the city release an accused arsonist?
By Tommy Woodward and Scherzer Bernstein
An arsonist set fires around Lincoln Park this week.
The most visible was a fire set in a trash can in Lincoln Park under the famous Chinese chestnut trees in the northeast corner of the park. The fire was at full blaze before 8 a.m. on June 2.
Some witnesses told the Lincoln Park Newsletter that a disheveled man in a gray hooded sweatshirt was spotted near the trash can around 7:45 a.m. at the time the fire might have been set.
Firefighters arrived promptly at Lincoln Park to extinguish the blaze before it set fire to old-growth Chinese chestnut trees.
Shortly after the trash can fire, the arsonist is believed to have walked down 12th Street, grabbed a pride flag from a home and set it on fire. The burning of the pride flag came at the beginning of WorldPride DC 2025 week.
Neighbors rallied to console the neighbor. “Awful that this happened,” a neighbor wrote on a listserv. “I hope our LGBTQ community knows we stand strong with them no matter what.”
Another resident wrote, “Thanks to you and all in this neighborhood who display — and more importantly, show in action — support of and solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, especially during this time when we are under constant targeted assault by this administration (especially our trans siblings). Please know that it does not ever, ever go unnoticed.”
A police report obtained by Lincoln Park Newsletter said that the pride flag was displayed on a fence and that while multiple neighbors observed the burning no one saw the arsonist. A search for Ring doorbell footage yielded no results, the MPD report said.
Later, another local resident reported seeing a fire at 10th and Pennsylvania Avenue SE around the same time.
The same day, a local resident walking her dog said that someone set fire to a baseball cap on the steps to the church on the corner of North Carolina Avenue and 13th Street NE.
On May 9, police arrested a suspect for a garbage can fire in a Capitol Hill neighborhood that had been struck by a series of deliberately set trash fires, NBC Washington reported. Some were destructive, including one that destroyed a garage and auto behind St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
It is unclear if that suspect is related to the Lincoln Park fires, but his description was very similar — a man in a gray hoodie. News4’s Jackie Bensen reported on the arson spree. The way in which the fires started also was similar.
Councilmember Charles Allen, a constant go-to for media interviews, stepped up to take a victory lap for the arrest of the suspect in May in the interview with Jackie Bensen.
However, did the District of Columbia’s forgiving DC Justice Lab catch-and-release policing policy, championed by Allen and the City Council, lead to a firebug being arrested and released, just to be allowed to set more fires on Capitol Hill?
Join the 4th of July marchers on Capitol Hill
Some Lincoln Park urn gardeners and others who have canine companions have been lobbying the Adopt-an-Urn volunteer program to consider entering a group to march in the Barracks Row Capitol Hill Independence Day Parade. They have consulted their parent group, Friends of Capitol Hill Parks, the largest volunteer group serving Lincoln Park, for some feedback. Let them know if you are interested.
https://www.capitolhill4thparade.com/
Here’s the urn map
https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1VAZgfCet1HjsOZBS8_WRa9vYzJILYqlRLcaXCnOL7Lw/edit?usp=sharing
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