Photo: Robert Burn
November 17, 2021 – Ventura County, Ca.
If 34-year-old Ventura area transient Robert Burn doesn’t have any particular affection for you, you might want to sleep with one eye opened.
That’s certainly a lesson learned by two other homeless fellows in the early sunset hours of November 16th. According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Timothy Lohman, it was just after 4:30 p.m. when the report of “a brush fire in a ravine” just off the U.S. 101 Freeway brought Ventura County Fire Department engines and deputies attached to the
Thousand Oaks Police Department to a homeless encampment wedged between the freeway and The Oaks Shopping Mall.
Upon arrival, deputies determined that 58-year-old Michael Webb and 54-year-old Francisco Osete had been “inside a tent at the location” when Burn approached the tent and “threw a flammable substance into the tent before lighting it on fire.” Webb and Osete wasted no time in evacuating the tent, but not before both suffered burn injuries.
By the time the Fire Department and a phalanx of cops arrived on the scene, Burns had fled the area and immediately became the object of a search conducted by deputies attached to the VCSD East County Major Crimes Unit, Thousand Oaks Patrol, and Ventura County arson investigators.
Webb and Osete were taken to a local area hospital for treatment of their injuries and were then provided additional services through the Ventura County Human Services Agency.
The following day, November 17 th , Burn was observed by patrol deputies as he walked along a Moorpark area thoroughfare. He was summarily detained, questioned, identified, and taken into custody. He was then transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was book on two counts of attempted murder with his bail set at $500,000.
Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking
