DPS offers reward to catch mansion arsonist

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) --  Investigators released video of the Texas governor's mansion arson, showing a man (or men) running away from the mansion at the time of the fire. The video also shows a man approaching the mansion with a package under his arm.

Investigators into the arson at the Texas Governor's Mansion have received 180 phone calls so far regarding the video they released the Tuesday. Watch the video here .

DPS officials said the reward for the suspect remains at $50,000. However, they did not refer to the man (or men) in the video as a suspect. DPS is asking the public to help in identifying the men shown in the surveillance video.

The first video clip shows a man walking on the sidewalk behind the Austin mansion before the blaze wearing a baseball cap with a longhorn logo, a dark-colored short-sleeved shirt and dark-colored pants. He may be wearing glasses and appears to be between 5 feet, 8 inches to 6 feet tall with a medium build.

About three minutes later, another video clip shows a man running from the mansion immediately after the fire was started.

Investigators are specifically requesting that news organizations show these videos statewide because of the large number of events that brought out-of-town visitors to Austin the night of the fire.

Anyone with information about the possible identity of the man depicted in the video can call investigators at (512) 506-2849, (512) 506-2861, (512) 506-2862 or the Crime Stoppers toll-free hotline at 1-800-252-8477 or 1-800-252-TIPS. All lines will be answered 24 hours a day.

Internal Investigation Report Released

DPS released an internal report on the Governor's Mansion fire on Monday that assigned blame around the incident, including a minute-by-minute timeline of the events that led up to the blaze at the historic home.

The 16-page report, compiled by Sgt. Michael Escalante, is intended to provide more answers into the question of whether adequate security provisions in place at the Governor's Mansion after Governor Rick and Anita Perry moved out in October 2007.

The detailed timeline shows a 15-minute gap between the point when a suspect is seen throwing a Molotov cocktail at the mansion and the when the lone trooper on duty notifies DPS Communications to call the Austin Fire Department. The State Operations Center was not notified of the fire for at least another hour because the SOC was not on the notification list for the DPS Communications operator to contact.

According to the report, a number of policies and procedures were not followed by DPS officers: the posting of proper security procedures during the renovation process; a failure by troopers to conduct consistent "fire watches" of the Mansion; and the fact written procedures about how to handle smoke alarms and perimeter cameras were not made available to all troopers. Troopers also had some confusion over the chain of command.

Security Detail for Mansion

Key findings in the report show that as early as three days into the renovations at the mansion last October, DPS Capt. Dale Avant realized the use of one trooper for each shift would not work. Avant met with Major Joel McKinney, and McKinney decided it was "too difficult" for one trooper to handle mansion security operations when construction workers were on site. At that time, it was decided a combination of troopers and non-commissioned officers would be used.

Sometime in mid-October, the decision to use non-commissioned officers was reversed and the schedule was changed to use only DPS troopers on the grounds for security.  

By mid-November the schedule included two troopers per weekday shift on a permanent schedule and one trooper per weekend shift on a rotating schedule. This decision was made after mansion staff expressed concerns about having officers assigned on a rotating schedule.

Although the weekday shifts were made permanent, the weekend shifts remained on a rotating schedule, split between troopers who would work 8 hours at another location and 4 hours at the Mansion. Additional troopers could be assigned to the mansion if construction was occuring on a weekend. It was Avant's responsibility to assign additional troopers, as needed.

According to the internal report, only one trooper was scheduled the night of the fire, when two troopers should have been assigned. That failure occurred because of confusion over the chain of command when it came to staffing on weekends.

Mansion Security Equipment

An inventory of the equipment used to secure the mansion included: 20 video cameras, camera recording equipment, camera monitors, perimeter infrared beam system, fire alarms, smoke detectors as well as the fence surrounding the property.

The report also indicates which of the security measures were not working on the night of the fire. Prior to the night of the fire four cameras of the twenty were not working and this information was known by DPS and mansion staff. After the fire, seven more cameras were discovered not working.  The perimeter infrared beams were not working and were being repaired off site.  According to the Texas Facilities Commission, most of the beams were obstructed by construction equipment.

According to the House Bill 2621 approved by the Texas Legislature last session, responsibility for maintaining the mansion security equipment were transferred from the Texas Facilities Commission to the Texas State Preservation Board on September 1, 2007.

According to records, DPS troopers report camera malfunctions on January 17, 23, and 29, 2008.

Fire Watch Logs

Troopers were to keep a fire watch log at the mansion, however, the report indicates that some troopers were not completing the log.

The report indicates that on June 7, 2008, a smoke alarm went off around 7 a.m. and the on-duty DPS trooper did not know how to respond. He called another trooper and that trooper asked him to call another trooper. That trooper told the on-duty trooper to acknowledge the alarm by hitting the reset button and then to check inside the mansion.  It was determined to be a "trouble alarm" and not an actual alarm.

According to the fire watch logs, no troopers noted that any smoke alarms went off. However, Trooper Thomas Harris told Trooper Perez that smoke alarms had been going off occasionally during the construction.

A review of documents by KXAN Austin News shows no prior discliplinary history for the DPS trooper who was on duty the night of the governor's mansion arson.

The full report is available in the link alongside this article.

Mansion Reconstruction Updates

Officials said they are currently in the process of stabilizing the structure, though no reconstruction has been done yet.

They are also working on fixing the roof.