ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A man has been charged with arson in a fire in Allentown last week that sent two police officers to the hospital.<\/p>\n
Julio Rodroguez, 51, of Allentown, is charged with arson, recklessly endangering another person, and disorderly conduct, according to a news release from the\u00a0Allentown Police Department.<\/p>\n
Court documents say he was arraigned Dec. 20 and faces a preliminary hearing on Dec. 26.<\/p>\n
At approximately 1:45 p.m. Friday, officers responded to the 700 block of South 10th Street for a report of a house fire with a person inside who was experiencing a mental health crisis and possibly armed, according to Allentown police.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rodroguez’s girlfriend told county dispatchers Friday he had been drunk all night, kicked her out, and had been making threats that he was going to burn the house down, according to court paperwork. She said she believed he was still intoxicated and the only person in the home, court documents said.<\/p>\n
Arriving officers found a fire coming from the home’s second floor. Both officers tried to talk with\u00a0Rodroguez to get him to leave a bedroom in the house, but he refused,\u00a0according to court\u00a0documents.<\/p>\n
The officers went into the smoke-filled room after\u00a0Rodroguez stopped responding to officers, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Court documents said the officers found\u00a0Rodroguez unconscious and carried him away from the fire.<\/p>\n
Rodroguez’s girlfriend later told Allentown police that she came home from work around midnight Friday to find\u00a0Rodroguez intoxicated and accusing her cousin of stealing his shoes,\u00a0court documents said.<\/p>\n
The woman told police Rodroguez then began arguing with her, which caused Allentown police to come and try to defuse the situation,\u00a0according to court\u00a0documents. After police left\u00a0Rodroguez continued to argue with her, which caused her to leave the house, authorities said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, as well as two police officers, were taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation and are recovering, according to officials.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Police say\u00a0Rodriguez texted his girlfriend multiple times threatening to “burn the house down” and made comments about not being afraid to die.<\/p>\n
The woman said she contacted dispatchers reporting that\u00a0Rodroguez was threatening to burn her house down,\u00a0according to court paperwork.<\/p>\n
A short while later,\u00a0Rodroguez called the woman via Facetime; during that call, the woman saw\u00a0Rodroguez with a blue lighter actively igniting an unknown item and dropping the ignited item,\u00a0court documents said.<\/p>\n
The Allentown police officers were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, fire officials reported. Further evaluation indicated one of the officers had\u00a0smoke inhalation, while the other had burns to his nostrils and back of the throat, court documents said.<\/p>\n
Two adults were displaced following the fire. They are being assisted by the American Red Cross.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A man has been charged with arson in a fire in Allentown last week that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,232,153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-67769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-allentown-area","10":"tag-bethlehem","11":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","12":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}