{"id":314449,"date":"2026-08-05T17:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314449\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T17:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T17:20:10","slug":"person-of-interest-in-brooklyn-church-arson-in-custody-after-midtown-shoplifting-arrest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314449\/","title":{"rendered":"Person of interest in Brooklyn church arson in custody after Midtown shoplifting arrest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A man being sought for questioning in the massive arson fire that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nydailynews.com\/2026\/06\/19\/fire-engulfs-historic-wooden-brooklyn-church-collapses-steeple\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">gutted a historic Brooklyn church<\/a> was taken into custody early Wednesday morning, police said.<\/p>\n<p>The 24-year-old was busted at 1:39 a.m. trying to steal food from a Times Square-area CVS on Broadway near W. 49th St., police said.<\/p>\n<p>He pilfered a sandwich, a Coca-Cola and ice cream, police said, then tried to leave before being stopped by an NYPD officer working private security at the store.<\/p>\n<p>The officer asked the man if he intended to pay for the food, at which point the man said no and was busted for petty larceny, cops said.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"FDNY firefighters are pictured at the scene of a three-alarm fire at South Bushwick Reformed Church on Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn on Friday, June 19, 2026. (FDNY\/X)\" width=\"3056\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/HLQLSouWoAAtyXW.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"9117138\" \/>FDNY firefighters are pictured at the scene of a three-alarm fire at South Bushwick Reformed Church on Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn on Friday, June 19, 2026. (FDNY\/X)<\/p>\n<p>Once the individual was in custody, police realized he was the person of interest being sought for the June 19 arson fire that destroyed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.southbushwickchurch.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Bushwick Reformed Church<\/a> on Bushwick Ave. near Himrod St.<\/p>\n<p>Videos and photos of the fire on social media showed flames and clouds of dark smoke billowing from the house of worship\u2019s steeple, which collapsed a short time later.<\/p>\n<p>Of the 200 firefighters who responded to battle the blaze, one suffered minor injuries.<\/p>\n<p>Police and the FDNY later said a person of interest was seen fleeing the scene.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"FDNY on the scene of the 3-alarm fire at South Bushwick Reformed Church on Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn on Friday, June 19, 2026. (FDNY\/X)\" width=\"908\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/church-fire-061926.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"9116842\" \/>FDNY firefighters are pictured at the scene of a three-alarm fire at South Bushwick Reformed Church on Bushwick Ave. in Brooklyn on Friday, June 19, 2026. (FDNY\/X)<\/p>\n<p>The man, who lives in Harlem, is expected to be charged with arson, police said.<\/p>\n<p>He has a prior arrest for criminal mischief for allegedly knocking over and damaging a television outside D.O.C. Wine Bar in Williamsburg on June 29, according to cops.<\/p>\n<p>Days after the fire, members of the nearly 175-year-old church launched a GoFundMe in hopes of resurrecting their home and keeping the congregation together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man being sought for questioning in the massive arson fire that gutted a historic Brooklyn church was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3094,98,100,99,40468,104921,3412,9,24,63,118719,2027],"class_list":["post-314449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-arson","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-cvs","tag-historic-church","tag-midtown-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-shoplifting-arrest","tag-times-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}