New police bodycam video exhibits the second a conspiracy theorist blew his Virginia dwelling to items.
James Yoo, 56, deliberately used gasoline to set his home on hearth, killing him within the course of and triggering an explosion that was felt by folks miles away.
Arlington County officers confirmed bodycam video which laid out the sequence of occasions that led to Yoo’s home exploding with a number of law enforcement officials in dangerously shut proximity.
A portion of the video exhibits a police automobile getting its windshield shattered by particles from the explosion, whereas one other depicts an officer getting blown again by the blast and charging away.
Investigators stated Yoo, who believed his neighbors had been spies who needed to assassinate him, acted alone and that this explosion wasn’t linked to terrorists.
Yoo’s house is seen from the vantage level of a cop automobile parked on his entrance garden moments earlier than it erupted right into a fireball
Pictured: The cut up second the place the complete dwelling explodes, which authorities stated was set by Yoo deliberately
Seconds later, the home comes crumbling down. Investigators stated Yoo acted alone and wasn’t working with terrorist teams
Officers had been despatched to Yoo’s dwelling on December 4 when an officer within the space heard what seemed like pictures.
When he went to analyze and was greeted by a number of nervous residents by Fields Park, close to Yoo’s dwelling.
As extra distressed calls from neighbors reporting gunfire or fireworks got here in, officers decided that flares had been being shot out from the again window of duplex on North Burlington Avenue.
Officers arrived on the duplex the place one of many models was owned by Yoo. The occupants of the opposite aspect of the duplex had been evacuated as police tried to provoke a dialogue with Yoo, who shot greater than 30 flares from his dwelling that evening.
Investigators stated that they could not make contact with Yoo, and all through the course of the four-hour lengthy confrontation, neighbors instructed police that he was a recluse that had lately lined his home windows with trash luggage, WUSA9 reported.
His social media additionally included weird ramblings accusing his neighbors of finishing up surveillance operations on his home and relaying data to US authorities.
The view of the explosion from the rear of the duplex Yoo had barricaded himself inside
A cop is seen on bodycam getting blown again by the sudden explosion. After yelling some obscenities. the officer activates his heels and runs away
‘[Names redacted] and her two kids are spies and act as buffers amassing my data after which delivering to their handlers,’ Yoo wrote within the unhinged social media entry.
He claimed that they had been ‘working with the witch and the alien’ plotting a ‘shock assault’ in opposition to him on December 7, the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor assault.
The posts seek advice from his ex-wife as a ‘witch,’ and anti-U.S. slogans together with ‘#F—AMERICA.’
He ranted: ‘That is how White folks function and have the luxurious of outnumbering all different ‘races’ by virtually 7 to 1 in ‘Merica.’
As soon as authorities discovered of a few of a number of anti-government posts, they had been in a position to get hold of a search warrant to look his dwelling and get better any weapons that may have been inside.
Yoo refused to again down from his barricaded place inside the home although, and makes an attempt from regulation enforcement to realize entry by taking pictures pepper spray and deploying tear fuel had been unsuccessful, WUSA9 reported.
A cop on a close-by stoop witnesses the explosion at Yoo’s dwelling engulfing a police automobile parked on the garden
Earlier than the home exploded, Yoo is seen firing flares out the again window, the place they landed in a close-by park and elementary faculty
James Yoo, the Arlington man suspected of triggering an explosion at his Virginia dwelling, was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who believed that the U.S. authorities needed to kill him with the assistance of his neighbors
The home all of the sudden exploded when officers tried to get in via a window at round 8:25pm.
The ensuing inferno did not kill anybody apart from Yoo, whose stays had been discovered the following day, however close by residents had been actually traumatized.
Emily Saxon, a 30-year-old nurse, stated that blast seemed like an ‘earthquake’ and the shockwaves felt like a automobile had run via her lounge.
Sam Kin, a 25-year-old advisor who lived subsequent door to Yoo, filmed the police making an attempt to coax the 56-year-old out of the home.
He stated the explosion was ‘traumatizing’ after getting hit by the shockwave.
‘I’m going to see my therapist proper now,’ Kim instructed DailyMail.com.
No severe accidents had been suffered by police and 60 firefighters responded to fight the flames.
Of their search via the rubble on December 5, police discovered gasoline canisters, three weapons, two flare weapons, magazines, ammunition and extra flares, WUSA9 reported.
Police discovered gasoline canisters, three weapons, two flare weapons, magazines, ammunition and extra flares
Pictured: The aftermath of the explosion that destroyed Yoo’s dwelling
A relative of Yoo instructed WUSA9 that he had a historical past of psychological sicknesses however refused any form of remedy for his alleged signs, which included psychosis, catatonic conduct and paranoia.
Amongst his different conspiratorial beliefs was the concept that there was a hyperlink between 9/11 assaults and Particular Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election.
That concept of his got here out via his submissions in a lawsuit Yoo filed in opposition to members of the family, together with ex-wife Stephanie, and Rochester Common Hospital for allegedly detaining him in opposition to his will.
The go well with was thrown out as ‘frivolous.’
‘Plaintiff believes he’s the sufferer of conspiracy in opposition to him by his sister, his ex-wife, and others together with RGH. Plaintiff believes, for instance, that his sister, ex-wife and RGH conspired to forestall him from acquiring an lawyer,’ a court docket doc learn.
His spouse divorced him on March 30, 2017, citing ‘the irretrievable breakdown of their relationship.’
Yoo was instructed to pay her a sum of $80,000 in addition to purchase her out of her share of their now-destroyed former marital dwelling for the sum of $150,000.
