PJ Media posted an article yesterday about a Portland man who had been arrested for starting fires and then released.

The article reports:

On Sunday, police arrested a man who confessed to starting a brush fire with a Molotov cocktail in Portland. They booked him in Multnomah County Jail. Portland being Portland, the authorities released the suspect that evening. The man then went on to start six more fires before the police arrested him yet again. The cops took him to a hospital for a mental evaluation.

What community resources were used to put out the six fires? What was the cost of putting out the six fires? How much disruption would have been avoided had the police taken him to a hospital for a mental evaluation and kept him in custody after the first arrest?

The article continues:

A reasonable person might expect the story to end there. The suspect confessed to the crime, the cops booked him in jail and got him off the streets. With a little time and some well-deserved punishment, the arsonist might reconsider his destructive ways. After all, the Pacific Northwest is undergoing a particularly harsh fire season, and fires near Portland have discolored the sky with smoke.

The story did not end there, however. Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has notoriously taken the side of violent antifa rioters against the police they attack, and he announced that his office would not prosecute many riot-related crimes, even when some of those crimes endanger the lives of police officers. Perhaps that attitude helps explain why Domingo Lopez Jr. left jail on Sunday evening. Apparently, the suspect had enough time on his hands to set a whopping six more fires before the police again detained him.

The article concludes:

“Portland Fire and Rescue extinguished three of them while passing community members put out the other three. All were caught early. No one was injured and no structures were burnt,” the police reported. Officers again arrested Lopez, seizing a lighter as evidence.

“Lopez was transported to a hospital on a Police Officer Hold for a mental health evaluation. He was issued citations for 6 additional counts of Reckless Burning,” PPB added.

This is what happens when authorities release dangerous criminals — they commit more crimes and endanger more people. Yet activists want to abolish the police?

This madness needs to end.

When people are arrested, they should not be immediately released.

Note that the article includes seven fires that were not caused by global warming.