Fire that killed 5 deliberately set by three masked suspects, Colorado cops say

The Denver Police Department said Tuesday that a fire that killed five people appeared to be deliberately set by people who fled the scene, according to a news release.

“The fire appeared to be deliberately set by three unknown individuals wearing dark hoodies and full-face masks who fled the area in a dark colored four-door sedan,” police said in a news release.

The Aug. 5 fire “killed Djibril Diol, his wife, Adja Diol, and their 3-year-old daughter, Kadidia Diol, as well as Djibril Diol’s sister, Hassan Diol, and her infant daughter, Hawa Beye,” The Denver Post reported.

Three other people living in the house jumped from the second story and survived, The Denver Post reported.

A $14,000 reward was previously set for information on the fire, according to police. Officials are investigating the fire as a homicide, according to The Denver Post.

The national Muslim Advocates group was asking police to investigate the fire as a possible hate crime, but Denver police said they are “not ready to do that just yet,” according to KDVR.

“We don’t want to get tunnel vision into a motive,” Denver Police Department Division Chief Joe Montoya told KDVR. “There are some cases in the front end that it’s very evident that what the motive was for a crime. This is not one of those cases.”

This story was originally published August 19, 2020 at 1:03 PM with the headline "Fire that killed 5 deliberately set by three masked suspects, Colorado cops say."