A man who allegedly hurled firebombs at five different targets in San Diego, including two police stations and a middle school, has been arrested after a high-speed chase ended in Riverside County.
Edward Batties, 26, was arrested about 5:30 a.m. Sunday in Temecula and jailed on a count of suspicion of arson, a count of evading a police officer, two counts of burglary and two counts of possession of a destructive device, authorities said.
The spree began Friday evening when the suspect, from San Diego, tossed a Molotov cocktail into the fenced yard at the San Diego Police Department’s Mid-City station, where it rolled under a car but did not set it on fire, said Maurice Luque, spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.
Minutes later, police received a report that someone had thrown a bomb at nearby Monroe Clark Middle School. No damage was reported.
The arsonist lay low until 4 p.m. Saturday, when a firebomb was lobbed at a pickup truck in Mission Bay, destroying the vehicle, officials said.
"When we got there, the thing was fully engulfed in fire," Luque said. Witnesses reported the suspect was driving a white Ford Explorer.
The suspect fired a Molotov cocktail at the Eastern Division police station about 7:30 p.m., but it did not cause any damage, and then tossed another at a Serra Mesa home, where it broke a window but bounced away and burned out in a yard, Luque said.
On Sunday at about 5:04 a.m., an officer investigating reports of a vehicle burglary in Del Mar Heights spotted the suspect’s pickup and began chasing him. Batties raced away on the northbound 15 Freeway at more than 100 mph, tossing a gas can and what appeared to be Molotov cocktails out the window, officials said.
The CHP joined the chase about 20 minutes later, laying a spike strip ahead of the suspect at a U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint in Temecula. After he sped over the spikes, puncturing his tires, Batties managed to continue for about a mile before careening into the center divide, where he was arrested, CHP officials said.
Batties was being held at San Diego County Jail on $160,000 bail. He was scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in San Diego.
— Amina Khan
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