Many of the cars were set afire inside garages and carports, frightening Angelenos with the prospect of being incinerated in their own homes.
It was Shervin Lalezary who put the cuffs on Harry Burkhart, a 24-year-old German national whom Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called “perhaps … the most dangerous arsonist in the county of Los Angeles that I can recall.”
Lalezary is a fulltime lawyer and a part time reserve deputy with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, As a reserve officer, he gets only a token salary of $1 a year, although he must work at least 20 hours a month.
“I’ll give him a raise of another dollar a year,” Baca joked after Lalezary made his day with the arrest.
Lalezary said, “I can tell you this is a lot more exciting than my day job.”
Lalezary was working early January 2. The Tehran native had been working full time for four days as the spate of arson fires—52 in all—had Angelenos very nervous.
“You just got the sense that everyone in the city was on edge, rightfully so, because of what was happening,” Lalezary told reporters. He recalled “seeing residents flee from their homes and basically run for their lives.”
Armed with a description of a possible suspect and vehicle gleaned from a surveillance video, Lalezary pulled over a van and shone a spotlight inside.
The man he saw fit the description: a white male adult with a short ponytail and receding hairline.
At the same time, two Los Angeles police officers, seeing Lalezary put on his flashing lights to initiate the traffic stop, pulled in behind him.
It was Lalezary who was thrust into the spotlight. Questioned by reporters hungry for more about him, he deflected questions about himself and his personal life, choosing to praise the full time deputies.
“As a reserve deputy, I’ve seen what they do, and I’ve sat next to them in the car shift after shift after shift, and I have tremendous respect for what they do,” he said. “They take the reserve program extremely seriously, and they treat us as one of them when we’re in the car.”
He declined to talk about any statements Burkhart may have made at the time, as well as his own emotional state.
“He is very humble. He’s a good kid,” said sheriff’s Capt. Phil Hansen, who heads the department’s Reserve Forces Bureau.
He said Lalezary’s reticence to accept accolades and his insistence on sharing credit with other officers may be part of the culture — especially among the reserves. “Part of being a reserve is striking that balance, because you’re not full time,” Hansen said.
Lalezary attended both UCLA and the University of Southern California. He received his law degree at USC, according to the State Bar of California, which lists his law office as being on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. He was admitted to the bar in 2008.
“I’ve been interested in both law and law enforcement for several years, and I think each influences the other,” he told reporters.
After moving from Iran with his family, Lalezary grew up in Beverly Hills, said Steve Whitmore, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Lalezary credits his family and upbringing with his desire to give back to the community, Whitmore said.
“He really does just want to provide community service to West Hollywood,” Whitmore said.
While reserve deputies are required to work a minimum of 20 hours a month, Whitmore said Lalezary “loves it so much, he’s out once or twice a week in a patrol car.”
Lalezary’s younger brother Shawn is also a reserve deputy and told reporters he now has “big shoes to fill.”
“I’ll continue to strive to be as good of a brother and deputy as he is,” Shawn Lalezary said.
The incident has focused attention on reserve deputies, a program used nationwide to provide support for sheriff’s departments.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has 844 reserve deputies, Hansen said. The reserve deputies undergo the same training as full-time deputies, except the classes are offered on nights and weekends rather than during the day, he said.
And reserve deputies, with only a token salary, are subject to the same hazards as regular officers.
Lalezary started as a Level 3 reservist in 2007, meaning he could perform traffic duties but no other work without accompanying fulltime deputies. He just became a Level 1 reserve deputy—meaning he could patrol alone and armed—in December after completing the requisite 1,064 hours of training, Whitmore said. Burkhart’s arrest came during Lalezary’s fourth solo patrol shift.
“I think the beautiful thing about our program is it mirrors the full-time program exactly,” Lalezary told reporters. While the training is held at different times, “everything we do is the same.”
“When reserve deputies are out on patrol, the public doesn’t know whether it’s a reserve deputy or a full-time deputy,” he said. “It makes no difference and rightfully so. The training doesn’t make any difference either.”
Burkhart, the accused arsonist, was in the United States legally on a visa that expires January 18. He may have been set on his arson spree by the arrest of his mother, Durothee, 53, on December 28, the day before the car fires began.
She was arrested on a German warrant on 19 counts of fraud, most related to rent and security deposits for apartments in Frankfurt, Germany. One charge said she defrauded the doctor who performed breast augmentation surgery on her in 2004.
The mother and son lived together in an apartment in Hollywood. Investigators said they found newspaper clippings in the apartment about arson attacks in Germany.