Caught on camera: Calgary restaurant catches fire in surveillance footage released by police

Calgary police have released a video that appears to show someone setting fire to a southeast restaurant.

Investigators said the fire at Lê La Vietnamese restaurant, located at 4-6624 Centre St. S.E., was set at around 4:15 a.m. on Friday, April 7.

Surveillance footage shows someone breaking the restaurant’s front window and throwing an incendiary device, believed to be a Molotov cocktail, into the eatery.

It appears the suspect’s clothing catches fire in the process.

“It appears that his clothing was on fire, but he exits the view of the video prior to putting it out, so we don’t know if he has injuries to his upper body or not but, we definitely know his clothing was on fire,” said CPS detective Wally Niewchas.

He added they’re looking for information from the public, and that hopefully someone might come forward who saw or heard something about a person with burns on their backpack, singed hair or burns to their upper body.

Niewchas said they’re also working on some forensic avenues as part of their investigation, hoping evidence they took from the scene will give them some leads.

“At this point we don’t really have a good idea of the motive of the individual; we believe it was a targeted attack but we don’t know what the reasoning for that is,” he said.

As for the restaurant itself, Peter Le, the owner’s son, said the family is worried about the future of their establishment, and the possibility that the attack could deter customers from coming in.

Police said the suspect was wearing dark-coloured shoes, blue jeans, possibly a plaid jacket, and was carrying a backpack. It’s believed they would have burned clothing and possibly sustained burns to their upper body.

Anyone with information on the arson is asked to call Calgary police at 403-266-1234 or contact Crime Stoppers.