The Knicks won their first NBA title in 53 years last month, and the celebration in Midtown turned into a night of stabbings, brawls with cops and a burning bus. Now a man the New York Post reports lives in Bushwick is facing a federal arson charge over that fire.
Jonathan Strahs, 30, was arrested Monday morning at his Brooklyn home and charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office with one count of federal arson, the FDNY said, according to the New York Daily News. The New York Post reported that Strahs was cuffed at a residence in Bushwick.
The fire happened June 14, in the hours after the Knicks closed out the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 to clinch the championship, the Daily News reported. The bus was a charter contracted to shuttle FIFA World Cup spectators between the Port Authority Bus Terminal and MetLife Stadium. It got stuck on W. 42nd St. near Eighth Ave. because so many fans had flooded the street, per the Daily News.
Surveillance footage shows a man entering the bus around 2:47 a.m. and stepping back out, with flames appearing moments after he left, fire officials told the Daily News and the Post. The fire spread through the interior and scorched another vehicle parked nearby before firefighters put it out, according to both outlets.
FDNY Fire Marshals determined the fire was set intentionally, then worked with NYPD Arson and Explosion detectives and agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to identify Strahs as a suspect, the Brooklyn Eagle reported. Investigators canvassed the area for additional surveillance footage that led them to him, the Daily News reported.
“This fire, set on a busy street during a night of celebration, put the lives of bystanders and first responders at risk,” FDNY Fire Commissioner Lillian Bonsignore said in a statement quoted by the Post. She added that the work of the agencies “has removed a dangerous individual from the streets of New York City.”
The burning bus was one piece of a chaotic night. Police arrested 63 people during the celebrations, the NYPD reported four people shot or stabbed and 10 officers attacked, with one punched in the face and another hit with a glass bottle, according to the Daily News. Fans also swarmed eight yellow school buses stopped in the street at 42nd St. and Ninth Ave.; the Daily News reported that police kept driving the crowd off the buses but did not have the manpower to make arrests, so fans swarmed the vehicles again each time officers backed off.
The mayhem had been building through the series. After Game 4, cops arrested 56 people between Fifth and Eighth Aves. and 10 officers were injured, the Daily News reported, with videos online showing fans stomping Citi Bikes, climbing street lamps, shattering windows and attacking taxis. That same night, the Daily News reported, a 17-year-old was beaten into a coma outside a bar on W. 35th St. by an assailant in a black-and-white referee jersey who had been screaming “Spurs in seven!” The attacker has not been caught.
