HARRISON TOWNSHIP — Police arrested a man after a fire destroyed an apartment complex in Harrison Township.
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Deputies were called to the 4100 block of Camargo Drive in Harrison Township around 3:40 a.m. after someone reported their significant other was sending pictures of themselves setting clothes on fire, according to the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
“My boyfriend is sending me pictures of setting my clothes on fire,” a woman tells dispatchers in a 911 call.
The caller stayed on the line as deputies responded.
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“I’m not going back in there but it’s a fire and he’s extremely drunk,” she tells dispatchers.
Deputies began pounding on doors urging residents to get out.
“The time I got out ... it was burning up, and the next thing I know, everything’s going on and up cause I lost everything,” George Johnson said.
Johnson said there was no time as flames hopped from one apartment to another.
Montgomery County Sheriff Rob Streck said deputies knocked on the door where they believe the fire began.
Streck said a man answered the door and told deputies ‘nothing going on here.’
After warning other residents, deputies took the man into custody.
Streck did not identify the man but online jail records show Chaunsay Tinsley was booked into jail on suspicion of aggravated arson around 5:45 a.m.
Jail records show Tinsley was arrested at the original location firefighters were called to in the 4100 block of Camargo Drive.
“He did it on purpose and now nobody has nothing,” Johnson said.
Roshanda Smith said her daughter lives below the apartment where the fire started and now has to start from “ground zero.”
“To do this? It’s horribly upsetting because my daughter is a single parent. She’s doing everything she can to provide a place to stay for her and her son,” Smith said.
The Red Cross was called to assist the around 24 residents left without a home.
We will continue to follow this story.
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