Gatlinburg TN is Burning!

[Mystic Wanderer]

Well, the verdict is finally in on the teens who started the fire, and guess what?  They let them go... dropped the charges!  

I suppose they must have some influential parents (rich) who got them off. 

Yep, I was right.  One is the son of a cop; don't know about the other one, but rest assured, he is a spoiled brat who has parents who get him out of all the messes he makes. 

Prosecutors have dropped charges against two Anderson County teenagers they labeled as responsible for the state’s deadliest wildfire in a century, an attorney said Friday. 

Defense attorney Gregory P. Isaacs said the state can’t prove that the horseplay of the boys, ages 17 and 15, sparked a fire in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that caused the deadly wildfires in Gatlinburg five days later.

"My client and the other juvenile, based on the proof and the evidence, did not cause the death and devastation in Gatlinburg," Isaacs said during an afternoon news conference inside his in downtown Knoxville law office.

Isaacs called the case "an unfortunate rush to judgment" on the two teens.

And, he continued, state prosecutors didn’t have the authority to charge the pair in the first place.

The boys were hiking on the Chimney Tops trail in the park on Nov. 23 and tossing lit matches onto the ground around the trail. Brush caught fire. The boys continued hiking down the trail. A fellow hiker with a Go-Pro happened to catch footage of them with smoke in the background. He didn’t know it was important.

Park officials decided to let the fire burn. Five days later, winds of nearly 90 mph inexplicably whipped up, spreading deadly flames into Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The emergency response was fretted with flaws, including the failure to warn residents and delayed evacuations. The fire would eventually encompass more than 17,000 acres, kill 14 people, hurt nearly 200 more and burn more than 2,400 buildings - at the height of Sevier County’s winter tourism season.

"Our firm’s independent investigation revealed (what happened on the Chimney Tops trail) did not cause the Gatlinburg fires beyond a reasonable doubt," Isaacs said.

"We want everyone to know that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims of the Gatlinburg fire."

Even if they couldn't prove the boys caused the fire in Gatlinburg, they should still be charged with arson for starting the fire on Chimney Tops.  Right?   Wrong!  They are getting off scott free, and that just burns me up! (No pun intended.)

The fire that started on Chimney Tops is on Federal Land, so they said it would be up to the Federal Court to charge them with that.
I don't see them getting anything for their crimes.

The federal government owns national parks, and only federal officials have authority to prosecute crimes committed on federal land. In 1997, the director of the National Park Service and then-Gov. Don Sundquist reached an agreement giving local and state authorities the legal right to also prosecute cases within federal lands in Tennessee.

Source

Sigh...  These boys better hope the people who lost everything, including family members, don't find out who they are. There are some out there that aren't going to accept this, I'm afraid.