[Saints News] Firebat Started The Fire

[HaveADream]

A Fire In the Los Santos Canals was linked to the infamous 'Firebat'.

 

Firebat Started The Fire

Plea Deal Reached

 

Kalyani Jamil

 

Jake Gebhardt, known by his online alias as 'Firebat' has reached a plea deal with the District Attorney's office late Friday night, in pleading guilty to three counts of 

arson.

 

Who Is 'Firebat'?

 

Firebat was one of the most notable instances of the FaceBrowser trend of accounts used for illegal or nefarious purposes, joining the ranks of Facebrowser accounts such as 'FromHell' and 'Rascal.' On this account, Mr Gebhardt posted photographs of arson attempts throughout the state, usually targeting abandoned or out-of-sight buildings, one instance being a trailer located in the Los Santos Canals. According to court documents, the lead detective was Samantha Falcone, who was unavailable for comment. 

 

What was unusual about Mr Gebhardt, however, was his use of another alias, which, according to court documents is known as 'Ethan', in which he posted additional photographs of the Los Santos Fire Department staff on-site, referring to the organisation as '[his] partners.' One such instance, obtained through the court documents, shows this below, implying he was somewhat affiliated with the Fire Department on this alternate alias. 

 

 

Court documents also show the extensive damage done inside the Bahama Mamas nightclub, which was targeted by Firebat for unknown reasons, breaking the usual trend of abandoned or unused buildings.

 

 

What Is The Plea Deal?

 

The plea deal included the pleading guilty of three charges of arson, with an additional requirement of a referral to a psychiatric facility instead of serving his sentence in federal prison. Accepted by both the defence and the prosecution, sentencing is likely to commence in the morning. It is believed that arson was a consequence of poor mental health, which affected the plea deal. The penal code suggests the following in the event of arson.

 

 

With the possibility of both FaceBrowser accounts of 'Rascal' and 'Firebat' eliminated and placed behind bars, many believe that the trend of illegal activity on the platform is coming to a close as resources are diverted to investigation on the platform. The official stance of Facebrowser remains unclear and whether they were forced to pass on information or willfully gave it up is unknown.

 

What Does This Mean For FaceBrowser?
 

Pornographic advertising, outrage against the use of boosted posts for what some consider 'egotistical' gratification, open discussion of criminal behaviour and a lack of privacy/visibility settings brings up to the current issue of how the service is ran, gun dealers, drug dealers and 'Rascal', who used the platform to distribute child pornography has raised questions regarding how the platform is operated and managed. With a seemingly visible lack of legal accountability and a finger to blame, the platform has increasingly seen calls for local regulations to be implemented, this case only adds fuel to that fire.

 

Saints News attempted to find a way to find a statement from FaceBrowser based on these issues, but there are no support pages on the platform, no contact pages and no information on lookup services, questions are raised regarding whether reporting posts and comments are effective and even has an effect and the platform runs with very little information regarding how it is running and the agenda it has. From our internal analysis, it appears FaceBrowser runs with no or a very limited sense of accountability, For a platform that advertises its services towards minors at or above the age of thirteen, the current content that is amock on the platform has raised questions regarding its effectiveness to tackle criminal behaviour on the website. FaceBrowser effectively runs as an enigma, with no ability to find out who's controlling it, what's being controlled and even simple functions like a privacy policy do not exist.

 

For the good, it does for the communication between the people of Los Santos, the communication from the platform itself is non-existent. 

 

Saints News

#ForSaintsBySaints

 

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by HaveADream

[The Red One]

Name: C.P

Comment: How exactly did Saints News get a hold of the Court Documents? It's still in Pre-Trial phase, those documents are only shown to the court and aren't publicly posted.