A fire that gutted the Davis' front office on Tuolumne Street across from the Solano County Superior Court early Saturday is considered suspicious, police and fire officials said.
"We're investigating it as arson at this time," Vallejo Police Dept. Lt. Sid De Jesus said. "We don't know for sure, but we suspect it's an arson case. Obviously, we're erring on the side of caution, working with (the) fire department.
"The cause and origin is yet to be determined, but because it's an office occupied by the mayor, we're looking at this from every investigative aspect that we can."
Reached by phone later, Davis said that to describe himself as "upset, is an understatement."
He said he was awakened at about 1:30 a.m. by a phone call from Fire Chief Paige Meyer, and knew it was going to be bad news.
"Any time the mayor gets a phone call in the wee hours of the morning, it's never good," Davis said. "I really don't know what to say right now."
Davis said he will carry on.
"I plan to keep going," he said. "This is a bump in the road, a temporary hurdle. And we'll get past it and continue to do what we need to do."
De Jesus said there is no indication "of a nexus" of any kind between the fire and the most recent officer-involved shooting that left one man dead and his family and supporters outraged. Arson is not a rare, though also not a common
crime in Vallejo, he said."We're not jumping to conclusions," De Jesus said. "Both (Davis and Micheal Thompson) are high profile people. It could be a disgruntled client of either attorney that occupied that office. I know the mayor is doing everything he can to stay on top of the latest officer-involved shooting, to address the concerns of the citizens, by soliciting an independent review which we welcome. It could be any number of things." Thompson shares the office with Davis, and has been a judicial candidate.
Last Tuesday, the Vallejo City Council unanimously agreed to seek an independent review by the state attorney general of the Sept. 2 fatal shooting by police of Mario Romero, 23, outside his North Vallejo home. Family members have strongly denied police accounts of the shooting, in which police claimed he reached for a gun in his waistband. It turned out to be a pellet gun, although family members denied that he owned one.
Calling the blaze, which appears to have started in the front waiting room area, "very suspicious," Fire Chief Paige Meyer said the single-story office building in the 400 block of Tuolumne Street, was about 50 percent involved when crews arrived shortly after 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
"We knocked it down within about 15 minutes, but the building looks like nearly a total loss," Meyer said. The contents, however, were mostly salvageable, he said.
Greg Marshall, the general manager of Premier Construction, the contractors hired by the city to board up burned buildings, said his firm got the call about 2:30 a.m. He said that since much of the damage to the building is from smoke and water, he's also been asked to salvage as much of the contents including legal documents, as possible.
Marshall said Davis was at the scene about 3:30 a.m.
This is the second incident in recent months in which the mayor has been the victim of a possible crime. On May 18, Davis' 11-year-old motorcycle was stolen from the City Hall parking lot.
De Jesus said police are asking anyone who may have been in the area at about 1:30 a.m. Saturday and think they may have seen something "suspicious in nature," to call the Vallejo Police Department's non-emergency number, 552-3285.
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