Police are looking for a person who was captured on surveillance video setting fire to a security system and several cars in the parking lot of a Nexstar Media Group-owned television station this week.
On Monday, police and firefighters were dispatched to the television studios of KSWB (Channel 69, Fox) in San Diego’s Kearny Mesa district after receiving a report of a suspected arsonist at the property.
When law enforcement arrived, employees at the television station had already extinguished two fires set by the suspected arsonist and were working to put out a blaze that ignited under the hood of a Jeep in the parking lot.
No employees or other individuals were hurt.
Surveillance video showed the suspected arsonist was able to gain access to the parking lot by using a blowtorch to disable a security keypad. After setting fire to the three vehicles, he reportedly tried to ignite a blaze along the exterior wall of the television station, but was chased off the property by alert employees before he could carry out those plans.
Police have not released a description of the suspect as of Tuesday evening. Fire investigators with the San Diego Metro Arson Strike Team, or MAST, are looking into the incident.
It was the first of at least two law enforcement incidents to afflict Nexstar-owned television stations this week.
On Tuesday, police in Washington, D.C. evacuated the television studios of WDCW (Channel 50, CW) after receiving a report of a threatening note that was sent to a worker there.
The note was allegedly sent by a new hire at the television station, who was escorted out of the building and has since been fired.
