Posts Tagged ‘arson’
52. Interview with Jarvis Glassner: Part 2
11 October 2011
– Sure can. Remember it perfectly. Place was a time bomb, just like I knew it’d be. I told them all on the way out there, was going to be a scene in there. Weren’t the least bit surprised when I walked in that house after the boys put the blaze out.
– Smelt like a busted gas main. Made you lightheaded just standing there. The fumes was still strong too, too strong. Told the boys to get out, told them I didn’t think the place had done all the burning it could yet.
– Granted, they didn’t listen, and that pissed me off a little bit, I admit that. Nothing ended up happening but, you know… I know what I know.
– No sir. Gas was just confirmation for me. Like I said, I knew it was criminal behavior the moment the call came in.
– You see, most people see a burning house and get all these noble thoughts. In other cases, rape or murder or theft, people assume the worst. They want the perp to get locked up. It’s good television, those crimes. Fire though. Fire’s got enough danger and spectacular in itself to keep people’s attention. So they automatically assume it’s an accident. Stove left on, electrical cord short circuit, gas leak, whatever. And I’m not gonna lie and tell you that ain’t the case. A lot of times, it is.
– But like I said, there’s fingerprints everywhere when you set fire to a place. My job is to find them. Would have been a quick deal for me if it weren’t for the bodies.
– Most situations where nobody’s laying claim to the property, city’s likely to write it off as some punk kids causing mischief. Condemn the place and everybody moves on with their lives. But homicide. Homicide’s a different breed.
– Can’t say I was too happy about it either. Most times, I get to head a case myself. Just me and the boys, four or five of my closest. Close within a day or two and move on to the next. But since Bishop decided he wanted to throw murder into the mix, all of a sudden I got Leon County homicide sniffing around my legs. Like they almost pissed themselves when they heard about it.
– Not exactly. Turned out the fire and the murders was two different things, happened at two different times, so I got to keep my case. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about homicide itself, just the bureaucracy of it all. I don’t got nothing against them boys. We all in it for the same reasons.
– Officers around here are real kind, humble fellows. But in a college town like this, they don’t get to see much action outside of date rape and burglary. So their eyes were wide when they showed up at the scene. Like they was praying for a body or something and their prayers was answered in right fashion. Reminded me of them boys that came into Kuwait after us. Got to looking like they was used to showing up late to the movies, and they’d finally got there during the previews. Boredom will bring out the unusual in anybody.
– Only reason I hate the homicide situation though is because my job gets put on the back burner, not thrown out completely but loses a lot of its importance, you know? And that’s not a good feeling no way you look at it.
– I walk into the Bishop job and the walls is scorched. The second floor’s caved in to the ground. Place smells like a desert oil spill. I get to surface mark it as arson, no search yet, and then I look down and there’s John and Jane Doe barbecued on the floor and suddenly I’m standing behind a bunch of blue shirts. Two seconds earlier, I was first in command. Now everybody’s crowded around taking pictures of them burnt up bodies and then taking pictures of everything else: the walls, the floor, the front door.
– I got some prestige at the department, a little bit of seniority from my investigative record but I haven’t been schooled on how to investigate homicide. And when you got dead people around, nobody pays much attention to the sagging, rotting, burnt up building around them. So nobody pays much attention to me.
– Yes sir. Bodies plain as day in the living room, scorched to the bone. Never did figure out who they were either, from what I know.
– I wasn’t too upset about it, really. There wasn’t any animosity in it all. One of the detectives came up to me afterwards and patted me on the shoulder. Said I had my work cut out for me. Place was a mess, he said. He smiled and I smiled back. Couldn’t hold it against him. He didn’t kill nobody. We all in this together, like I said. It’s just the way things are supposed to run. But a veteran such as myself can’t help but feel like he got the short end of things.
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48. Interview with Jarvis Glassner: Part 1
[Jarvis Glassner has been a fire investigator with the Tallahassee Fire Department since 1992 and was on the scene during the investigation of the fire allegedly started by Earl Bishop and Anthony Stephens. Mr. Glassner is extremely enthusiastic to speak about his job and his experience both with this incident and within Tallahassee’s overall emergency response structure. Mr. Glassner works out of the primary police station in Tallahassee, where he sits in his office now, dabbing sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief]
11 October 2011; 13:23
– Twenty years I’ve been on the job. Past five of them years I spent turning down offers for everything from District Fire Chief to State Fire Marshall. I love Tallahassee. Love my job. Love the action. I refuse to sit at a desk filing papers into folders, sticking them in cabinets. To go out and face the media with some other field officer’s reports. Reports I could’ve very well gone out and made myself. I’ve got to be out here [Mr. Glassner points outside emphatically]—out there—digging through the leftovers. Finding the prints, whether that’s actual fingerprints or footprints or goddamn ass prints. These S-O-B’s always give themselves away at some point. It’s all in the details. One of my boys gives me a good enough description of the scene, I can tell you over the phone whether it’s arson or not, whether it’s accidental or purposeful. Heck, I could tell you if somebody was trying to make it look like a accident when it wasn’t. Can’t pull the wool over my eyes. It’s all in the training, basic to be exact…[1]
– Sure, sure. Just illustrating my point. I never been the type to sit in the background. I got too much sense to lay back and let somebody else fumble around with evidence. Half these men in here got the balls to do the job right when they’re told, but they don’t got the know how.
– The Bishop case now, hell. [Mr. Glassner chuckles and pats his knee lightly, looking around as if he wishes there were a larger audience] I knew that was arson soon as the call came in, moment they sounded the alarm for us to get out there. I’ve lived in this city my whole life. I been passing by them houses on Old Bainbridge almost every day since I was a boy riding in the back of my dad’s pickup.
– Them houses over there, they couldn’t set fire to themselves. Abandoned or not, them houses been standing for years, no problem. So, you see, things like what Bishop done, they just don’t happen coincidentally. And that’s where I come in. [Mr. Glassner leans in and lowers his voice, pointing his thumb back towards his chest] My job is to prove coincidences don’t exist.
[1] Mr. Glassner goes into a lengthy description of his enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corp. during Operation Desert Storm in the late eighties. Mr. Glassner is a former member of the first battalion/seventh marines group, which he proudly states was the first team into Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and one of the only teams to enter into any type of military combat during the conflict.
Who Is Anthony Stephens? 