Teen charged with setting grange hall on fire

A 15-year-old Spokane Valley boy has been charged with setting the May 29 fire that gutted the historic Clayton Grange hall.

Daniel A. Sweetland, 7919 E. Heroy, is to make an initial appearance Monday in Stevens County Juvenile Court in Colville. He was charged Thursday with first-degree malicious mischief, a Class B felony.

Sweetland was being held Thursday in the Spokane County Juvenile Detention Center on an unrelated matter, and was to be transferred to Martin Hall detention center in Medical Lake today.

According to court documents, Sweetland has an extensive criminal record and has violated probation 11 times.

Stevens County Deputy Prosecutor Michael Clay alleges in charging documents that Sweetland was visiting his girlfriend in Clayton when he set the fire by tossing a cigarette into a storage room that contained books, fabric and, possibly, newspapers. The room had once been a ticket office and had a window with an opening, accessible from a porch.

Sheriff’s Detective Ben Paramore interviewed Clayton teenagers, including Sweetland’s girlfriend, who said he started the fire, court documents say.

The girlfriend said Sweetland ignited a poster on a telephone pole as they walked to the front steps of the Grange hall, and he told her as they sat on the front steps that “it would be cool if I burned this thing up.” She also said she told Sweetland the brick building wouldn’t burn and that it had been there “forever,” according to court documents.

Then, Clay wrote, Sweetland lighted a cigarette stub on both ends and tossed it through the window slot. Sweetland’s girlfriend said he tried to retrieve the cigarette, but couldn’t reach it. She reportedly said Sweetland went to sleep in her home and was upset and scared when she woke him and told him the Grange hall was on fire.

The girl’s mother told investigators she asked her daughter what happened when the fire broke out and the girl told her that Sweetland had tossed a cigarette through the ticket window, Clay stated.

The deputy prosecutor said Sweetland told Paramore at first that he simply flicked a cigarette toward the building while walking past it. Then Sweetland claimed hot ashes accidentally rolled off his cigarette and through the ticket window while he sat on the building’s porch, according to Clay.

Sweetland allegedly told Paramore he tried to douse the hot ashes with urine, but doubted the effectiveness of his effort because he hadn’t much urine available at the time.

Spokane County court records show Sweetland was convicted of residential burglary, second-degree burglary and second-degree malicious mischief in 2002. In 2003, he was convicted of second-degree malicious mischief, second-degree burglary, first-degree criminal trespass and third-degree malicious mischief in three incidents. Charges of car theft and third-degree malicious mischief were dismissed in 2003.

Stevens County court documents say two of Sweetland’s convictions involve a Spokane Valley fire station and a church, and that he was kicked out of an inpatient treatment program because he was using methamphetamine.