A Scapegoat for the Flames
Police round up a local Chinese cook after a string of suspicious small fires, despite a lack of concrete evidence.
Morally certain that he is the author of numerous fires which have kept the fire department on the jump the past week, the police yesterday afternoon arrested Andy Lee, a well-known Chinese cook around town. Lee strenuously denies that he is the firebug but the police are certain he is the fellow wanted, though evidence so far accumulated is circumstantial. Lee has been much in evidence at several of the fires of late which were started in rubbish heaps in the business center and late Saturday night he was discovered prowling around in a mysterious manner in the rear of the Stanley music house where numerous packing boxes are stored. The officer on the beat turned his bull's eye on him, finding Lee crouching down beside some barrels. When accosted he mumbled that he was drunk. Another fact that looked suspicious was that he discovered a waste box on fire in the second floor of the Stencil building and turned in an alarm. Lee will be brought up in the police court this evening. Friends of Lee say that he is in the habit of getting drunk and forgetting to pay bills, but aside from these defects is a pretty good Chinaman.
“Lee strenuously denies that he is the firebug but the police are certain that he is the fellow wanted, though evidence so far accumulated is circumstantial.”
This arrest highlights the routine criminalization of Chinese residents in the early 20th century, where 'circumstantial' behavior—being in the wrong place while foreign—was often treated as definitive proof of guilt. It serves as a stark reminder of the era's pervasive anti-Chinese bias, which frequently weaponized civic crises like urban fires against the most vulnerable members of the community.
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