POLICE BEAT:

WATERFRONT FIRE (IC time frame: Mid-July) -- Police and Fire units were dispatched by a phone call, just before dawn, from Marina employees alerting them to a highly suspicious fire outside one of the Waterfront warehouses near the Fish Market in Southeast.

 

The Arson Squad states that no damage to actual buildings was sustained, and the fire in question was of a highly unusual and suspicious nature. The fire at the Waterfront was devoid of chemical residue (unusual in Arson fires which are usually started by a quick-lighting flammable agent of some sort), and of an abnormally fast-burning and intense heat for a naturally occurring fire. This unusual finding was also noted in the fire that demolished Charlie’s, a corner bar at 14^th & U Streets N.W. not far from the 9:30 Club, as well as the fire in an abandoned apartment building in Anacostia that killed Farrell Februus and a large dog or wolf. This latest particular fire was notable in that the burn pattern was neatly circular, in a pattern eminating from where the large man was said to have been standing. Controlling a fire of such intensity to that level of precision is extremely difficult.

 

Witnesses claim to have seen a giant, demonic looking man covered in fire, burning a smaller figure, who could not be described further as witnesses say he or she was engulfed in flames and moving towards the Potomac River's edge, where they crumpled in a heap, presumably dead. The flaming man suddenly ceased to be on fire, shifting into an oversized man whose skin seemed to look like molten lava. He walked over, picked up the body and broke into a black BMW, parked on the access road nearby. He dumped the body into the front seat of the BMW and walked off, his form then reportedly shifting into that of a well-built young black man. He then left the scene in a green or blue older sedan parked down the road, but police were unable to detain him for questioning.

 

 

The BMW on the scene was registered to entertainer Anya Star, who has been out of town and unavailable for questioning. The question has been raised as to whether the dead body could have been a relative of Ms. Star's, or even Star herself, though even in her absence, Star's spokepeople deny such a possibility. The body, burned beyond recognition, was taken to the DC Morgue, but no further reports have been issued on their findings.

 

Scene investigators noted some minor blood residue in the grass but much of it was burned beyond testing, and what they could find tested as an anomaly, denoting multiple blood types in the same sample. The Forensics Office has no further comments on the significance of the findings at this time.

 

The Office of Tourism and Public Relations has stated that no permits had been filed last month for filming of any media location shoots, and local casting directors as well as Professors in Communications deny any knowledge of any student movie projects being shot in that area.