The former California professor accused of intentionally starting wildfires to trap the firefighters battling the massive Dixie Fire was a radical anti-Trumper, according to American Greatness.
Gary Maynard, who previously taught at Santa Clara University and Sonoma State University, was arrested this week and charged with intentionally setting a series of fires near the ongoing Dixie Fire, where thousands of first responders were trying to get control of the wildfire.
“He entered the evacuation zone and began setting fires behind the first responders fighting the Dixie Fire,” assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Anderson said in a statement. “In addition to the danger of enlarging the Dixie Fire and threatening more lives and property, this increased the danger to the first responders.”
Last November, Maynard went on a wild rant about former President Donald Trump, claiming Trump would likely become violent if he lost the 2020 presidential election.
“Donald Trump’s lack of—or unwillingness to self-reflect in order to self-improve, and his lack of empathy while being threatened with his first major, public, political and personal defeat, might activate a sense of the need for the use of violence, violent protests by his supporters or outright sabotage of the nation by locking down the economy or some other major act to damage the nation before he is forced to leave office, if he loses,” Maynard said at the time.
Maynard also compared Trump to Jim Jones, an insane cult leader who ordered the mass murder–suicide of 918 Jonestown commune members in 1978.
As recently as last fall, Maynard was teaching in the criminology and criminal justice department at Sonoma State University. He focused on the “sociology of health, deviance, and crime,” according to the school’s official bio for him.
He was denied bail during a court appearance this week and will make his next appearance before a judge on Aug. 24.
