Saturday, May 17, 2008

Fire near Daley summer home ruled as arson

Heh, someone who apparently believes that this cougar killed on the north side should be allowed to roam the streets of Chicago. That or the police shouldn't have used quick thinking in having to shoot this creature and kept it alive somehow. Tough call but it just goes to show some people need a cause to believe in and they're not always rational about their cause. SouthtownStar:
The letter to Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was blunt, "very personal and vicious" - and singled out the mayor's wife and children.

The writer was furious about the April 14 slaying of a wild cougar in the city's Roscoe Village neighborhood and threatened to torch the mayor's home.

On April 24, two days after the unsigned letter arrived, someone set a fire on the grassy dunes near Daley's summer home in Grand Beach, Mich., sources said.

"It's about the cougar," a source told the Chicago Sun-Times Friday, describing the writer as an apparent animal rights activist. "The connection was to the killing of the cougar and (Daley's) comments making light of the killing of the cougar."

The fire - which didn't reach the mayor's home but burned the homes of neighbors - initially was believed to be an accidental brush fire. But police reopened the investigation after learning about the threatening letter sent to Daley's city hall office and ruled it arson, Berrien County, Mich., Sheriff J. Paul Bailey said.

Police were giving few updates Friday and had no information about a possible suspect in the case.

"I'm not going to go into any details of that investigation, but what I can tell you (is) we've taken every measure we can to make sure that the mayor and his family remain safe," Chicago police Supt. Jody Weis said.

Chicago police and the Chicago office of the FBI are working on the case, Weis said.

The writer of the letter sent to Daley raged against Chicago police killing the Roscoe Village neighborhood cougar, which was shot in an alley after it lunged at an officer, police said. The 124-pound cat arrived in the city by way of Wisconsin, according to experts who matched its DNA to blood left behind by a cougar spotted in an abandoned barn near Wilton, Wis., in January. After the cat was shot, Daley scoffed at suggestions the animal should have been tranquilized.

After the shooting, a school a block south of where the cougar was shot also received a threatening letter from someone angry about the killing. Police patrols were beefed up around Audubon Elementary School, 3500 N. Hoyne Ave., and the school principal sent a letter to parents notifying them of the threat. It's not clear if that letter is related to the one sent to Daley's office.

The April 24 fire was set in a wooded area adjacent to the Daley summer home and destroyed the $2 million home of Brad Griffith, vice chairman of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, and his fashion designer wife, Tiffani Kim.
I'd have rather the animal had been tranquilized instead of killed unfortunately such activity by an "animal rights" activist may have relegated that cause to even more of a fringe group!

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