How the California wildfire was falsely pinned on an immigrant

20 October 2017

USA: The wildfires spread first. Then came the rumors.

Early this week, Sheriff Rob Giordano of Sonoma County was forced to debunk false reports spread by conservative media that his office had arrested an undocumented immigrant for starting the deadly California wildfires.

And that was before Immigration and Customs Enforcement got involved.

The federal agency’s acting director, Thomas D. Homan, on Wednesday accused Sheriff Giordano’s office of refusing to respond to federal requests about the immigrant, Jesus Fabian Gonzalez, leaving the community “vulnerable to dangerous individuals and preventable crimes.”

That, Sheriff Giordano said, was “inaccurate,” “inflammatory,” and was a distraction for local authorities responding to a major natural disaster.

“Frankly, I didn’t want a public rhetoric war with the federal government,” he said on Friday. “What I want to do is put this community back together.”

The fire, which Mr. Gonzalez said he started to keep warm, threatened no structures and was quickly put out, the sheriff said.

That arrest was reported locally, and rumors began to fly.

The conservative media outlet Breitbart reported on Tuesday that Mr. Gonzalez was arrested “on suspicion of arson in Wine Country fires that have killed at least 40 residents.” That same day, Sheriff Giordano felt compelled to publicly deny the connection, saying there was no indication Mr. Gonzalez was involved with the deadly fires.

“We don’t even know if it’s arson,” he said at a news conference. “It could have started a million ways.”

Then Mr. Homan issued his statement on Wednesday.

In it, he said that Mr. Gonzalez had been arrested multiple times before, and that the sheriff’s office had repeatedly failed to notify federal authorities of his release. Mr. Gonzalez’s arrest, he said, was “especially troubling in light of the massive wildfires already devastating the region.”

Sheriff Giordano then began receiving questions about Mr. Gonzalez again, he said. To answer them accurately, he and several others researched the arrests.

“I spent several hours doing that when I could have been doing community work and working on the fire issue,” he said.

He issued a long statement on Thursday rebutting the agency, saying that it had stirred fear and that he was eager to get back to focusing on recovery from the fire.

On Friday, Mr. Homan said the whole episode could have been avoided had the sheriff’s office cooperated with federal authorities in the first place.

20. October 2017/by Fernando Casillas Bernal