Transient Arrested for Seattle Arsons

November 16, 2009

Seattle police have arrested a transient suspected of setting a string of arsons.

Seattle Police arrested the man, identified by the SeattlePost-Intelligencer as Kevin Todd Swalwell, at about 12:30
a.m. Friday near a three-alarm fire that burned a vacant furniture
warehouse in Shoreline, just north of Seattle.

Swalwell, 46 years, is a convicted arsonist who has spent 12 of the past 26 years in prison on arson convictions, the newspaper said.

Investigators have said Swalwell is a person of interest in the Greenwood fires. He was arrested early Friday by a task force that was responding to a fire in a vacant furniture store in Shoreline, an area about 5 miles north of the Greenwood neighborhood.

There have been 14 fires in the Seattle’s Greenwood neighborhood
since June 19 and six in the past two weeks. One man was injured in
a fire in August. A fire on Oct. 23 destroyed four restaurants and
caused $2 million damage.

The Shoreline fire broke out just after midnight early Friday at
the rear of the building.