An apparently homeless man walked into a boba tea shop in downtown Berkeley and lit some WD-40 on fire in an attempt to torch several students who were waiting in line.
It's unclear when the incident took place from this KPIX report on Tuesday night, but it appears to have come from the video in the tweet below that was posted late Tuesday. The video is a composite of surveillance footage from inside the Feng Cha Teahouse in Berkeley, and subsequent cellphone footage of the victims of the initial attack subduing the suspect outside on the street.
Homeless guy tries to set student on fire in Berkeley Boba Shop and gets a beat down. pic.twitter.com/QUaRXiYXWm
— ђ𝐲єιή혜인 🇺🇸 🇰🇷 (@HyeinK1m) September 16, 2020
In the video, you can see the suspect enter the tea shop and quickly raise the can of WD-40 and the lighter, igniting the spray onto the back of at least one male victim's head. The suspect then runs out, and he's followed by several of the men who were attacked.
As victim Noel Nubla tells KPIX, "Once we got outside we were kind of just bumping fists. He got me in the face a couple times and then I got him back he started bleeding and then I took him down to the ground, saw him pull out the knife … I yelled out ‘he’s got a knife he’s got a knife!"
Nubla says he managed to subdue the man and get the knife away from him by stepping on it, but then the suspect allegedly pulled out an axe and began threatening bystanders with that, until police arrived and finally subdued and arrested him.
One witness says the suspect made "kind of like an evil chuckle" as he sprayed his improved blowtorch in the shop, and he was yelling something about his daughter.
"He was holding the axe and he was like just staggering around, and he was getting closer and closer and it was really scary," the witness, named Angelique, said to KPIX.
The suspect has not yet been identified.
Update: Late Wednesday the Alameda County District Attorney announced charges against 46-year-old Brandon McGlone, of Berkeley. He was charged with arson, making criminal threats, throwing a flammable substance on another, assault with a deadly weapon, and possession of destructive devices, per the Chronicle. Allegedly, prior to the attack at Feng Cha Teahouse, he attacked two men sitting at Artichoke Basille’s Pizza at 2590 Durant Avenue, also spraying them with ignited WD-40.
