just a little reading over arson...

i was doing a paper on arson for a friend of mine and just found some interesting stuff that maybe i'd share here, you know, to also get credit:

The Happy Land Fire was notoriously known as an arson fire that trapped and killed 87 people at the nightclub “Happy Land.” Located in the West Farms of the Bronx, the club was ordered to be closed due to the failure of following the building code regulations in November 1998, which was two years before the incident, due to lacking any fire exits, alarms, or a sprinkler system. On March 25, 1990, a large group of Hondurans decided to throw a part in celebration of Carnival, a huge celebration dealing with religion that occurs right before lent. However, a nasty fight broke out between Julio Gonzalez and his girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, as he was urging her to quit her job as a coat girl. After getting dumped by his girlfriend and getting kicked out of the club by the bouncer, Julio was fueled with anger and felt that he needed to take revenge for his misfortunes. Finding a plastic bottle on the ground and filling it up with gasoline at a nearby gas station, he flooded the only staircase with that gasoline and threw two lit matches onto the floor. With the fire exits being blocked due to others trying to enter without paying the cover charge for the party, a few managed to escape by jumping through the flames. Sadly, those who were unfortunate were not able to escape and either died from being exposed to noxious smoke, trampled on, or left to burn. Gonzalez was arrested the next afternoon after Lydia Feliciano talked about the dispute that her and Julio had prior to the incident. Julio ended up confessing that he was the one that had started the fire. On August 19, 1991, Julio Gonzalez was finally convicted of 87 counts of arson and 87 counts of murder, but ended up being charged with 174 counts of murder. Although a psychological exam that he partook in showed that he was mentally unstable, the jury still found him guilty on the case that he was responsible for the occurrence. Sentenced for a maximum of 25 years, Julio Gonzalez’s next parole hearing will be in 2015. Ever since then, the northwest corner of Southern Boulevard and East Tremont Avenue in the Bronx was known as “The Plaza of Eighty Seven.”