A fire that destroyed a Helena-West Helena Police Department patrol car was deliberately set and was an act of vandalism, Police Chief Virgil Green said.
Firefighters arrived to fight the fire at a housing complex on Adams Street at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. The 2016 Chevrolet Impala had been doused with accelerant and set ablaze, Green said.
The officer assigned to the vehicle, whom police did not name, stopped at the complex in the 400 block of Adams Street shortly before the fire was set. He was on duty but was not responding to a call at the time, Green said.
"He stopped there to talk with someone inside the housing development," Green said.
The officer said he was inside the building when he heard several loud "pops." When he went outside, he saw the car on fire and its windows exploding from the heat.
No one was injured, and no other cars were damaged, Green said.
"Fortunately, the unit was not running when it was set on fire," the police chief said.
Firefighters from a nearby fire station quickly doused the flames.
Mayor Jay Hollowell said the vehicle was considered a total loss and damage was estimated at $28,000.
The Phillips County city bought 11 new patrol cars last year to replace aging vehicles, Hollowell said. It was less expensive to buy new vehicles than to maintain the older cars, he said.
Green said "clearly" the officer's car was targeted. Authorities found a plastic container near the rear of the burned vehicle that held the accelerant used to start the fire, the chief said.
Police sent the container to the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock to see if investigators can find fingerprints or DNA on it, he said. The Helena-West Helena Police Department also requested assistance from the Arkansas State Police Criminal Investigation Unit.
"We have no leads and very little evidence now," Green said.
If someone is arrested, he will face charges of arson and destruction of governmental property, he said.
"This is a first where a police vehicle is targeted," Green said of his city. "We haven't seen anything like this before."
Hollowell called the vandalism an "isolated incident" and said the city had not received any threat beforehand or had any other property vandalized.
"This is a dangerous situation," he said. "I don't know if the officer was targeted or not. But people can listen in to [police] radio broadcasts, and they know where the officers are."
Green asked that anyone with information about the fire call the Police Department's Criminal Investigation Division at (870) 572-3441, or post a message on the department's Facebook page.
State Desk on 02/16/2017