Across the country, there’s been a series of mysterious incidents plaguing power stations, and around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday another incident took place at a solar power plant in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Metro Police responded to a call at a solar plant on U.S. 93 north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
When police arrived, they found a car smoldering in a generator pit, according to media reports from 8News Now in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Metro Police later identified the suspect as 34-year-old Mohammad Mesmarian.
He is accused of ramming a car through a fence and setting the vehicle on fire, according to police.
8News Now reports that the car Mesmarian used is registered out of Idaho, according to documents found.
Mesmarian drove the car through the fence on Tuesday afternoon originally after employees had left for the day, according to police.
It wasn’t until Wednesday at 12 a.m. that video evidence reportedly shows Mesmarian setting the car on fire, media reports said.
The suspect sat in a chair for about 15 minutes watching the car burn before he fled the scene, according to reports.
Detectives believe Memarian used gasoline from his car to splash on the wires at the transformer, according to documents obtained by the 8 News Now Investigators team.
Officers located Mesmarian at a campground in Boulder Beach at Lake Mead, a 30-mile drive from Las Vegas.
It is not clear how the suspect traveled to Boulder City from Las Vegas.
Two laptops and an iPhone were found in the car linked to Mesmarian.
He faces charges of committing an act of terrorism, arson, destroying or injuring real or personal property of another, and escape by a felony prisoner.
An employee at the plant spoke with 8 News Now and said the fire caused major damage, and the plant is not producing electricity due to the incident.
“Following an incident at the Mega Solar Array facility, on-site personnel immediately notified authorities and shut down the plant’s operations as a precaution in accordance with industry-standard safety protocols,” an Invenergy spokesperson said, “No one was injured, and we are currently restoring the facility’s full operations.”
Power stations across the country have been vandalized, such as a substation in Washington state that left many people on Christmas Day without power.
The Dallas Express contacted the Las Vegas Metro Police for additional information and comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.
