Man Arrested Over Fire at Memorial for Pulse Nightclub Victims

A antheral was arrested successful transportation with a occurrence that destroyed portion of the Pulse Interim Memorial successful Orlando, Fla., which honors the 49 victims of 1 of the deadliest wide shootings successful the U.S. history.

The man, Mark Henson, 64, of Orlando, was charged connected Tuesday with felony transgression mischief, the Orlando Fire Department said successful a statement.

No 1 was injured successful the fire, which was captured connected surveillance video. The Fire Department said that the video, on with witnesser statements, led investigators to marque the arrest.

It was not instantly wide whether Mr. Henson had a lawyer.

On Saturday, the onePULSE Foundation, the nonprofit radical that created the memorial to grant those killed 5 years agone astatine Pulse, a cheery nightclub, released a video connected Facebook showing a antheral mounting occurrence to the site.

The video showed that conscionable earlier 8:30 p.m. connected Oct. 12, a man, whom the authorities aboriginal identified arsenic Mr. Henson, pulled up to the memorial successful a wheelchair and acceptable occurrence to the materials connected “the offering wall,” which features mementos and flowers.

Within seconds, the materials erupted successful flames, the video showed.

As the blaze spread, the antheral past moved distant from the memorial and headed down a street, distant from the surveillance camera. After much than 15 minutes, the occurrence burned itself out.

Because the memorial sustained much than $1,000 successful damage, “it is considered a felony,” said Ashley Papagni, a spokeswoman for the Fire Department.

The instauration said connected Tuesday: “We are grateful to the Orlando Fire Department for today’s arrest. As always, we are truthful appreciative of each of the archetypal responders who enactment to support our assemblage safe.”

A Pulse survivor, Brandon Wolf, who regularly visits the memorial to grant his friends, said the harm was “heartbreaking.”

“This is simply a abstraction wherever precocious astatine nighttime erstwhile nary 1 other is here, I travel erstwhile I privation to consciousness adjacent to them again,” helium told a section quality station, WFTV.

In June, President Biden signed a measure that designated the tract of the nightclub arsenic a nationalist memorial. The nine was a fashionable destination for Orlando’s L.G.B.T.Q. community.

“Just implicit 5 years ago, the Pulse nightclub, a spot of acceptance and joy, became a spot of unspeakable symptom and loss. And we’ll ne'er afloat recover, but we’ll remember,” Mr. Biden said astatine the signing. He described the instrumentality arsenic “literally a monument to a nonaccomplishment that occurred determination and an implicit determination that we’re going to woody with this each azygous solitary day.”

The legislation, called H.R. 49 and named for the fig of radical killed successful the rampage, was portion of an effort to alteration the erstwhile tract of the nightclub into a imperishable memorial, with a planned reflecting excavation encircling the Pulse gathering and a depository with vertical gardens, nationalist plazas and a rooftop promenade.

At the interim memorial presently astatine the site, radical tin permission flowers astatine an “offering wall,” and presumption the erstwhile nightclub building.