A 36-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to arson charges, including a hate crime allegation, after he was arrested in connection with two fires that authorities say were set in Yucaipa. One of the fires damaged a church.
Jonathan Nava of Albuquerque, New Mexico, entered his pleas on Monday, April 29, in Superior Court in San Bernardino via closed circuit television from West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga. He was charged with two counts of arson of an inhabited structures and one count of arson to terrorize.
Places of worship, courthouses, public libraries and places that provide abortion counseling are among those covered by the terrorism statute in the state Penal Code.
Battalion Chief Alison Hesterly, a spokeswoman for Cal Fire’s San Bernardino Unit, declined to say why the department believes Nava targeted the church, citing the ongoing case. A message left with the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was not returned.
The fire at the Retreat Church on Avenue H on April 24 was reported around 1:40 p.m. Witnesses and security recordings showed a car pulling up and someone throwing a gasoline can at the church, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said. The fire was extinguished before firefighters arrived.
An employee of the church, which also houses the Yucaipa Christian Preschool, said Wednesday that the fire burned a carpet outside the church and caused some smoke damage.
During the investigation of the church fire, authorities learned of a second fire nearby at a business on County Line Road.
The church fire prompted the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state Fire Marshal to join local authorities in the investigation. Physical evidence and security camera recordings provided a description of a pickup that was at the locations, the Sheriff’s Department said.
Later that day, deputies were dispatched to the 31600 block of Yucaipa Boulevard, where a pickup had crashed into a fence and the driver was attempting to free the vehicle.
“As the deputy approached the vehicle on foot, the interior cabin of the vehicle was set on fire. The deputy opened the vehicle door and the male subject, later identified as Jonathan Nava, fell out of the vehicle. Nava sustained fire-related injuries to his leg,” a sheriff’s news release said.
Nava was questioned and arrested.
Nava is due back in court on May 6.
In 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the FBI said that of the 3,147 hate crime offenses classified as crimes against property, 74.1% were acts of vandalism. Arson was among the other offenses accounting for the remaining 25.9% of crimes against property.
