LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A combination of technology, DNA evidence and around-the-clock detective work led Las Vegas police and the FBI to the man accused of firebombing vehicles at a Tesla collision center last month, according to documents the 8 News Now Investigators obtained Thursday.
Las Vegas Metro police arrested Paul Kim, 36, on Wednesday, March 26, on charges including arson and possessing an explosive device, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported. U.S. Marshals later took Kim into custody on federal charges. On Monday, a federal judge ordered him jailed pending trial.
The fires happened Tuesday, March 18, around 2:45 a.m. at the Tesla center located at 6260 West Badura Avenue near Jones Boulevard and Warm Springs Road.
License plate readers, cameras, social media tools, DNA and other technology directly led to Kim, LVMPD Sheriff Kevin McMahill said during a news conference last week.
Kim arrived in a car, which he parked near the collision center, LVMPD Asst. Sheriff Dori Koren said last week. Kim then, armed with a rifle, shot at surveillance cameras outside of the business. He then spray-painted the word “resist” on the front doors.
Kim then shot at least five vehicles and set fires with Molotov cocktails, Koren said. Kim then drove off in his car, which police later located while canvassing video from more than 700 locations across the Las Vegas valley.
Investigators swabbed DNA from the rim of an unexploded Molotov cocktail as well as from a bag attached to the bottle, documents said. Kim allegedly built some of his homemade explosive devices using wine bottles and an unknown accelerant.
In addition to surveillance video from the collision center, police obtained video from two Teslas, however there was “nothing pertinent” found on them, documents said.
Officials tracked the car from the collision center to Kim’s apartment in the southwest valley, documents said.
While license plate readers aided police in tracking the car, Kim removed his actual license plate from the vehicle, police said. However, the car’s distinctive tail lights and rims helped in the tracking.
Flock Safety collaborates with Metro police on the license-plate-reading technology. The company’s CEO previously explained that every car has a fingerprint, and that the technology creates a search engine for investigators to find cars.
Detectives located previous videos of a car, which at the time of those recordings, had a license plate registered to Kim, documents said.
Police also obtained warrants for information inside Kim’s vehicle as well as from his phone, which showed the car in the area of the collision center at the time of the fires, documents said.
Kim reported his vehicle missing to his insurance company in the hours after the fires, the 8 News Now Investigators first reported. Police later located the car at a different collision center where employees said Kim told them his car was stolen and damaged, documents said.
In federal court, Kim’s attorneys have described his alleged actions as causing “property damage.”
Kim did not appear in court Tuesday on his state charges. A hearing was scheduled for later this month to determine a trial date.
