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Arson suspect on surveillance video

Brooklyn, NY - A person of interest in today’s massive fire at the Kings Plaza Shopping Center that injured nearly two dozen people and destroyed over 100 cars has been apprehended and arrested by police.

A tweet by NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea announced that the investigation into today’s seven alarm blaze is continuing and was accompanied by a surveillance photo of a person of interest in the fire stamped with the word “apprehended” in red letters.

Police identified the suspect as 23 year old Avon Stephens from Brooklyn.

As previously reported on VIN News (http://bit.ly/2xpVNwh), the seven alarm fire broke out at approximately 9 AM on two floors of the four story structure and burned for nearly three hours.

The photo released by the NYPD this evening was captured by security cameras in the parking garage and showed Stephens with his shirt slung over his shoulder and boxer shorts prominently showing over pants that hung below his hips walking past a row of Jeeps shortly before the fire erupted. 

According to the New York Post (https://nyp.st/2xrcMhI), Stephens is believed to be a homeless man who had been fired by a Mercedes Benz dealer that rents space in the garage and banned from the premises.

Sources said that 132 out of the 137 cars that caught fire were Mercedes Benzes.

ABC News (https://7ny.tv/2xrPecD) reported that numerous agencies, including the FDNY and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, are investigating the fire, which had 18 firefighters and three civilians treated for smoke inhalation.  None of the injuries sustained are believed to be life threatening. 

“Our members have various levels of smoke inhalation, heat exhaustion, working under those conditions,” said an FDNY spokesperson.  “Smoke and heat, wearing what they wear, one can only imagine what they are going through.”

The FDNY estimated that over 250 firefighters responded to today’s fire.

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