Police Say Teen Started Detroit Fire in Insurance Scam

November 2, 2000

A 16-year-old boy was arrested for arson Tuesday night in Detroit after police saw him throw a Molotov cocktail into a home where a woman with five children used to live.

The Detroit Free Press reported that police said the unidentified youth told them he did it as a favor to the woman, who he said was trying to collect on an insurance policy. The boy is being held in the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility pending a decision on whether to charge him with arson as an adult or a juvenile. His alleged accomplice, a 25-year-old Detroit woman who was renting the home but not staying there with her children, is scheduled to be arraigned today for conspiracy to commit arson, the Free Press reported.

According to the report, officers received a tip that someone would torch a single-family home in the 17100 block of Lamont on the city’s northeast side on Tuesday evening, and a team from the Detroit police Violent Crimes Task Force set up surveillance.

Topics Law Enforcement

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