SAN JOSE — Richard Tillman, youngest brother of the late San Jose-raised NFL star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman, used “insta-logs” and lighter fluid bought from a grocery store to make his car into an incendiary device and set fire to a San Jose post office over the weekend, according to criminal charges filed Tuesday.
According to a probable cause affidavit accompanying a criminal complaint for felony arson and vandalism, Richard Tillman kept livestreaming the resulting inferno on YouTube even as he was being interrogated by a San Jose police officer and apparently confessing to the crimes.
Ultimately, it was the officer who took hold of Richard Tillman’s cell phone and turned off the broadcast, the affidavit states.
The 44-year-old San Jose resident is being held in the Santa Clara County Main Jail in lieu of $61,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court on Wednesday. In addition to arson and vandalism, he is also charged with a felony count of possessing combustible materials for the purpose of arson.
Richard Tillman was arrested following a fire call made around 3 a.m. Sunday at a post office in the 6500 block of Crown Boulevard. The blaze engulfed the building and took about 90 minutes for San Jose firefighters to extinguish, and it was firefighters who pointed out Richard Tillman to a responding San Jose patrol officer.
The affidavit describes an on-scene interrogation in which the officer determined that about two hours before the fire erupted, Richard Tillman had purchased “insta-logs” and lighter fluid from a Lucky supermarket.
“Mr. Tillman then parked his car across the street from the post office and lay in wait. After some time, he scattered the ‘insta-logs’ throughout his vehicle and doused them with lighter fluid,” reads the affidavit authored by San Jose arson investigator Mark Buttitta. “He backed his vehicle into the post office, grabbed a match, and lit the car on fire causing severe damage to the structure.”
Richard Tillman spray-painted “VIVA LA ME” on the exterior of the post office and livestreamed the fire on his YouTube page, which has since been deactivated.
He apparently didn’t stop broadcasting until the officer “ended the live stream and arrested Mr. Tillman,” according to the affidavit.
The criminal investigation is being conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — in conjunction with San Jose police and arson investigators — but is currently being prosecuted in local court.
Tillman is the brother of Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who left the National Football League in 2002 to enlist with his brother Kevin in the Iraq war after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
After a tour in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Pat Tillman trained to become an Army Ranger. He was sent to Afghanistan in 2004, where he was struck by friendly fire and killed on April 22, 2004.
At his brother’s funeral at San Jose Municipal Rose Garden on May 3, 2004, Richard Tillman gained notoriety with a profane and hostile eulogy for his brother. Tillman also had a lengthy history on YouTube before his page was deactivated, making videos under the name of Yeshua HaMashiach (a Hebrew phrase that translates to “Jesus the Messiah”) and also listing himself in his profile description as “The Son of the Most High God.”
Tillman eventually began tying his belief that he is the son of God with a mission to bring down the government.
“Hey y’all, the second coming here,” Tillman said in a video from July 15. “What I need to do is absolutely prove who I am. And I will do that. I will do that. And it won’t be through thunder and lightning … As far as the next phase of the game, I know what needs to be done. I’m going to take down the whole system without killing one (expletive) person … I will take down the United States government and the world government.”
In a public statement following the arson arrest, Richard Tillman’s family said he had been struggling with mental health issues and that the family has struggled itself to get him proper care and support.