On June 27,
2023, just before 10:00 p.m., Mesa Police Officers responded to reports of a
fire inside a Target store located at 1230 S. Longmore. Officers ran inside the
store with a fire extinguisher, yelling to make sure no one else was inside,
but soon realized the store had filled with too much smoke and had to exit.
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| Smoke in Target |
Mesa Fire
Department arrived and extinguished the fire. In a joint investigation with
Mesa Fire, officers learned that two separate fires were started inside the
store: one in the baby diaper aisle and the other, a piece of clothing on the
floor.
Diaper Aisle 
Burned Shirt
Target
reported the amount of damage caused by the fire was upwards of $5,000,000 as
toxic smoke had contacted all the merchandise inside the store in addition to
fire suppression sprinklers flooding the area.
Officers gathered
video surveillance from Target and watched as an adult man walked through the
store, placing items into a shopping cart. This man picks up a shirt resembling
the one that was set on fire. He hastily moves from the area, toward
electronics as smoke is starting to invade the store. The man watches the fire
grow and then attempts to break into a case of cell phones with a hammer but is
unsuccessful.
The man is
one of the last to leave the store and when he does, he takes several items of
stolen merchandise with him and flees in a black sedan.
Officers
obtained a license plate from surveillance video and eventually identified a
suspect, 31-year-old Daniel Hull. As
luck would have it, officers wouldn’t have to look far to find Hull, he was
sitting in Mesa Police custody from an unrelated arrest earlier in the day.
Hull was
interviewed by officers and admitted to starting the fires.
Daniel Hull
was booked into jail for the following charges related to this case:
ARS
13-1704A; Arson of an occupied structure, a class 2 felony
ARS
13-1201A; Endangerment, a class 6 felony
ARS
13-1805I; Shoplift Artifice, a class 4 felony
ARS 13-1602A1; Criminal Damage over $5,000,000, a class 4 felony
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| Daniel Hull Mug Shot |
