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August 23, 2021 – Santa Barbara, Ca.
If only it had been the dead of winter and he was merely seeking the warm glow of a contained fire, 22-year-old Santa Barbara resident Miguel Plascencia might have been able to talk his way out of trouble on August 21st. Alas, it was in broad daylight and the middle of summer, conditions in which Santa Barbara’s climate hardly calls for a trash can conflagration in broad daylight.
But warmth was apparently not Plascencia’s motivation as the noon hour approached and a 911 Emergency Call to the Santa Barbara Combined Communication Center alerted authorities to an individual igniting trash can fires on one of the city’s principal commercial district thoroughfares. According to Santa Barbara Police Department spokesman Lt. Aaron Baker, “a short time later, a second fire was reported nearby” in another trash can location.
As SBPD units rolled to the scene, they received a further report that an individual was “attempting to light a palm tree on fire” in the same commercial vicinity. By the time officers arrived on the scene, their suspect had fled the area, but witnesses provided a “detailed description” of him. At the same time, a nearby American Medical Response ambulance team spotted “a man matching the description” who was attempting to light trash cans ablaze in a nearby public park.
Responding to the park, officers made contact with Plascencia and promptly took him into custody. He was transported to Santa Barbara County Jail, where he was booked on two counts of arson and two counts of attempted arson, with his bail set at $1,000,000.
