A former police chief in Laurel, Maryland, is accused of causing a dozen fires in several counties, targeting people with whom he had disagreements.
David M. Crawford, 69, was arrested on Wednesday on several counts of arson and attempted murder, the Prince George County Fire Department said. Crawford reportedly set fire to residential vehicles, houses and garages in a series of arson fires from 2011 to 2020.
Many of the fires took place early in the morning and involved a suspect wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a tight hood around his face and carrying gallon jugs full of gasoline. Authorities said the person was seen in a surveillance video using a stick wrapped in a cloth to start the fire and driving a silver sedan.
An interruption in the investigation occurred after the last known fire in 2020, when authorities found a connection between the victims, which led them to Crawford.
All victims had some sort of dispute with Crawford before his property was set on fire, according to authorities.
The victims included a former City of Laurel employee, a former Laurel police chief, two other former police officers, two members of Crawford’s family, two of his former doctors and a neighbor.
Five of the fires occurred in Howard County, three in Montgomery, two in Prince George and one in Frederick. Crawford is also suspected of an arson in March 2019 in Charles County, where a fire in a vehicle spread to a nearby home while the victim and his family slept inside. He was not charged in the Charles case.
In the first fire, on May 28, 2011, Crawford would target an officer from the city of Laurel. Authorities said the surveillance video captured him pouring gasoline into the victim’s personal and work vehicles before setting the car on fire.
“While the suspect was setting fire to the victim’s personal vehicle, the suspect’s clothes caught on fire. The suspect is seen on video fleeing the scene,” according to the fire department statement.
On September 5, 2016, he reportedly set fire to a house in Clarksburg. The house was unoccupied, but the fire spread to a neighboring house, where a person was at home, officials said. The following September, Crawford is accused of setting fire to the same house.
During another incident, on June 23, 2017, a family that included two young people was sleeping in their home in Elkridge when a fire broke out. Authorities said the family managed to escape.
Crawford reportedly set fire to an Ellicott City home on three separate occasions. On December 9, 2017, firefighters responded to a fire in a single-family home on Spring Meadow Drive. The family, two adults and a young man, managed to escape.
In August 2018, contractors working on the damaged home found that an area of the front yard had been burned, according to authorities. A month later, authorities were called to another house fire.
“The house was unoccupied because renovations to the previous fire have just been completed,” officials said. “Investigators determined that the fire started along the front of the house to include the garage and spread to most of the rest of the house.”
Authorities said charges of attempted murder were made because “there were clear signs that residents were inside the houses at the time that Crawford set fire to the structures.” During six of the fires, the victims were at home sleeping, according to authorities.
In January, authorities executed a search warrant at Crawford’s home in Ellicott City and found “several items of critical evidence”, including a “target list”. He has been charged in several jurisdictions and is being held at the Howard County Detention Center.
The online court records do not list a Crawford attorney.
Crawford last worked on law enforcement in 2010. In an October press release that year, Laurel Mayor Craig A. Moe announced that Crawford was retiring for “personal reasons”.
His previous jobs included District Heights Police Chief and a major from the Prince George County Police Department.
