Recordpub.com - Arson eyed in Kent fire: Man says he was Tasered, arrested after saving family

Michael Bartlett Jr. explains injuries to his face, ear and back in front of the house where the fire occurred. Shannon Bartlett, a resident of the home who was not there during the incident, holds her 4-year-old daughter Fayth Lipkins.

l-r: Shannon Bartlett, resident of the home, Matthew Moschella, was in basement when fire started, Fayth Lipkins,4 daughter of Shannon also resides at home, Michael Bartlett Jr., arrested for resisting arrest and misconduct at an emergency. all are standing in front of the boarded up home where the fire occured.

Shannon Bartlett and her brother Michael Bartlett Jr. stand on the porch at the rear of the home where much of the damage occured.

Shannon Bartlett stands at the rear of the home where much of the damaged occured.

Michael Bartlett Jr. and Shannon Bartlett stand on the porch at the rear of the home where much of the damage occured.

rear of the home damage

side of home damage

By Dave O’Brien

Record-Courier staff writer

Michael “Mikey” Bartlett Jr. said the reward he got for rescuing several people from an early morning fire Sunday on Crain Avenue in Kent was to get Tasered and arrested by Kent police, allegedly for hindering firefighters’ efforts at the scene.

Standing outside the Crain Avenue house Monday, Mikey Bartlett, 19, said he was not treated Sunday for burns he suffered to his ear, head, back and arm when he entered the house to warn family and friends of the fire.

One of those who made it out thanks to Mikey Bartlett was Matt Moschella, who woke up to his friend screaming “Fire! Fire!”

Moschella said Monday he thinks the fire was arson, and Kent police agree. The fire, which rendered 605 Crain Ave. uninhabitable, is “actively being investigated” as intentional, Kent police Lt. Jayme Cole said Monday.

Mikey Bartlett had left the house around 4 a.m. Sunday to watch the unofficial Halloween celebration wind down, but went back inside for his cellphone, he said. That’s when he saw flames coming out of his sister Shannon’s room.

Shouting for everyone to get out, he put his T-shirt over a friend’s face to keep the smoke out of her lungs as he led her outside.

Fortunately, Shannon Bartlett was not in her room. She had left for her boyfriend’s house 30 minutes earlier. When she returned during the emergency, there were several Kent police officers outside. When she approached one, whom she identified as Sgt. Ed Wheeler, and asked “Can you guys help?” she said he “laughed in my face” and called her an obscene name.

“‘What the (expletive) you think we’re gonna do?’” Shannon Bartlett quoted Wheeler as saying. Soon after, Mikey Bartlett was Tasered, arrested and booked for misconduct at an emergency and resisting arrest, both misdemeanors.

He sat in the Kent jail from 4:38 a.m. Sunday until his 1:30 p.m. arraignment later that day, then for two-and-a-half more hours in Portage County Municipal Judge John Plough’s Kent courtroom before he could get to Robinson Memorial Hospital in Ravenna for treatment.

Michael Bartlett Sr., Mikey’s father, said Monday he was taking his son to the burn unit at Akron Children’s Hospital to get checked out. He said he believes “the world would be a worse place without police officers,” but was bothered by what his children reported about Sunday’s incident.

“To stand there laughing, that’s not how a policeman should behave,” Michael Bartlett Sr. said.

Cole said four police officers’ written accounts of the incident disagree with the Bartletts’ account. He also said anyone needing medical care while in Kent police custody “gets it,” and that every time Kent police use force during an arrest, a separate report is filed for supervisors. Such a report was filed after Sunday’s incident, Cole said.

He said Mikey Bartlett “understood there was nobody left in the house” at the time of his arrest.

“Mr. Bartlett was not thinking clearly or of his own safety. His actions were hindering the firefighters and he was placing himself in danger ... after being warned several times,” he said.

As for the alleged profanity: “I’ve tried to get (Sgt. Wheeler) to curse, and I have yet to succeed in 10 years,” Cole said.

The Bartletts suspected early on the fire was arson. They said Mikey Bartlett “got into it” earlier in the night with an uninvited guest at their party, which had been cited for unlawful noise by Kent police. One out of an unopened set of tiki torches Shannon Bartlett kept on the back porch appears to have been opened and used to set the blaze outside her room at the rear of the house, she said.

Shannon said Monday she was glad she replaced the batteries in all five of the house’s smoke detectors two weeks ago.

Despite the night’s events, nothing will replace the memories she and her family lost, Shannon Bartlett said. All her belongings and many of her 4-year-old daughter’s toys were a total loss.

“Our mom died (in 2001) and all her stuff was inside, and I don’t even have that anymore,” she said.