{"id":46241,"date":"2021-06-16T00:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-16T06:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mistrial-declared-for-professor-accused-of-setting-fire-to-tortilla-chips\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:30:22","slug":"mistrial-declared-for-professor-accused-of-setting-fire-to-tortilla-chips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mistrial-declared-for-professor-accused-of-setting-fire-to-tortilla-chips\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistrial declared for professor accused of setting fire to tortilla chips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A judge denied a request Thursday to move the trial out of La Plata County for a Fort Lewis College professor suspected of starting a fire at south City Market in October.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The first attempt to try a Fort Lewis College professor for first-degree arson after he allegedly ignited tortilla chips at south City Market ended this week in a mistrial.<\/p>\n

The mistrial for Bradley Todd Clark was declared Monday, said Eric Hogue, court executive for the 6th and 22nd judicial districts, which includes Durango.<\/p>\n

The mistrial came after one juror reported COVID-19-like symptoms and another juror encountered an unexpected problem obtaining day care. Both jurors were excused, leaving the jury with only 11 members on what was supposed to be a 12-member jury, Hogue said.<\/p>\n

Clark, 48, an associate professor of political science at FLC, was arrested Oct. 6, 2019, on a charge of first-degree arson in connection with a blaze a day earlier that began in aisle 7 at south City Market in Durango.<\/p>\n

\"Clark\"
Clark<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Durango Police Department had obtained video surveillance from the store that showed a male suspect igniting the blaze.<\/p>\n

The man was seen in video footage going to the self-checkout to purchase items, using a debit card and a City Market Value Card. Law enforcement officials tracked the cards and said they belonged to Clark.<\/p>\n

A search warrant was issued for Clark\u2019s home, and he was taken into custody a day after the fire.<\/p>\n

Within days, Clark was placed on administrative leave at FLC. He remained on leave as of Tuesday, according to a college spokeswoman.<\/p>\n

Clark joined FLC in 2006.<\/p>\n

According to Durango police, Clark had been arrested in 2007 in connection with a dumpster fire, though prosecutors ultimately dropped those charges.<\/p>\n

The south City Market fire was quickly doused by Durango Fire Protection District, and damage was confined to the dry-goods aisle.<\/p>\n

No one was injured in the blaze. However, the fire set off sprinklers in the store and reportedly caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.<\/p>\n

A status conference is scheduled for Thursday to reschedule the trial.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

exhibits COVID-19 symptoms, another has day care problems, leaving only 11 on panel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[741,133,168,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-arson","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86801,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46241\/revisions\/86801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46241"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}