Kentucky state senator sues his hometown police and fire departments over blaze
A Kentucky senator is suing his hometown police and fire departments over an alleged arson fire that destroyed his office.
An attorney representing Sen. Johnnie Turner, a Republican from Harlan, filed a complaint last month alleging that the city police and fire departments were negligent in handling an arson threat and a fire that destroyed a downtown building Turner owned.
The building held offices for Turner’s law practice, a construction company, a dental office and several apartments upstairs.
A man who lived in one of the apartments, Adam Mills, 21, is charged with setting the fire. He also is charged with six counts of endangering the lives of other tenants and with fleeing from police.
Harlan police Lt. Mitchell Alford said in an arrest citation that after a disagreement with Turner, Mills went to a nearby gas station, filled two water bottles with gas, then spread the gas through his apartment and set a blanket on fire.
However, Turner told the Herald-Leader at the time that he hadn’t had a disagreement with Mills that led to the fire.
Rather, Turner said another tenant had called him just before the fire and said that Mills and his brother, who stayed with him, had been arguing over money and that Mills was threatening to burn down the building.
Turner said he gave the brothers food at times and hired them for odd jobs. Earlier the Saturday of the fire, he had paid them to work for a couple of hours cleaning brush from the hill above his home, Turner said.
In the lawsuit, Turner alleges that other tenants reported to police that Mills was threatening to burn down the building, but that officers didn’t take immediate action to investigate.
“This intentional delay/non-investigation resulted in Defendant Mills having ample time to actually proceed, and follow through, with his express, direct threat” of torching the building, the lawsuit says.
The complaint also says that the city fire department failed to deliver proper assistance at the fire because of the “inability of its fire trucks to properly reach the location of the fire.”
The Harlan department had an agreement with another department to bring in equipment in such cases, but didn’t act on it quickly enough when Turner’s building caught fire, the lawsuit charges.
Attorneys from the law office of Gary C. Johnson in Pikeville filed the complaint for Turner.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of money to compensate Turner for the building, lost business and rental income, impairment of his ability to earn money and other expenses, along with punitive damages.
The city and other defendants have not responded in court.
Turner, a former state representative, defeated incumbent state Sen. Johnny Ray Turner, a Democrat from Floyd County, in the November 2020 general election.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 10:42 AM.
