MIAMI – An inmate at the Miami-Dade County Pre-Trial Detention Center is facing an arson charge after he set a fire inside his cell earlier this week, authorities said.
According to his arrest report, Hernan Lazaro Rodriguez, of Miami, set the fire Wednesday inside his cell at the detention center located at 1321 NW 13th St.
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Police said eight other inmates were also housed in the cell, placing their lives in danger.
According to the report, surveillance video shows Rodriguez pacing around in the cell prior to the fire.
Police said the video shows him preparing some materials to ignite under one of the lower bunks.
“Another unidentified inmate first takes the mattress and folds it over, exposing the vented base of the steel bunk,” an officer wrote in the report. “Rodriguez is working on something on top of the adjacent bunk and then walks back over to where the half-exposed bunk frame is with what appears to be a book and places (it) beneath the bunk.”
Police said Rodriguez then stepped out of view of the camera and returned with a “cylindrical object” that he placed on top of the book.
“After walking to and from the staging area, he returns to the bunk and ignites something that he then places to the combustible materials he had placed under the bunk,” the report stated.
Police said Rodriguez then used a sheet to cover the area where the fire was burning and fanned the flames to make it grow.
“He is then recorded putting it out and placing the mattress back in its original position immediately prior to an MDCR officer entering the cell,” the report stated.
Police said while the “heat source” is unknown, the video clearly shows that Rodriguez intentionally set the fire.
He now faces a charge of arson to an occupied structure.
Jail records show he was already in jail on charges of battery on an officer or firefighter, burglary to a vehicle, obstructing the extinguishing of a fire, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, criminal mischief and grand theft of a vehicle.
As of Friday morning, Rodriguez was being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
His bond for the arson charge was set at $10,000.