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An Indianapolis man with a lengthy criminal history faces eight years in prison after he was convicted of setting an IndyGo bus on fire and damaging a bus depot days earlier in separate April 2024 incidents.
Chief U.S. District Judge Judge James Sweeney II sentenced Demarcus McCloud, 46, to eight years in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, after he pleaded guilty to two counts of malicious damage to property receiving federal funds and one count of malicious damage to federal property.
McCloud has also been ordered to pay $1,790,685.23 in restitution, according to the Indiana Southern District’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to court documents, on April 24, 2024, around 7 a.m., Indianapolis Fire Department and Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers responded to a report of a fire at the IndyGo bus stop at 38th and North Meridian Streets. When first responders arrived, the inside of the bus and front half of the exterior were engulfed in flames.
Bus cameras captured McCloud boarding Bus #1993 at the Julia Carson Transit Center with a jug of liquid and two butane lighters.
The bus was actively operating and transporting passengers along the Red Line at the time. After boarding, he sat in the back, lit a cigarette while hiding under a blanket, discarded it on the floor, then lit and extinguished a piece of paper before relocating to another seat.
As the bus neared Meridian and 38th Streets, he poured liquid down the center aisle, left the jug on its side, and began to exit the bus as the liquid continued to flow out. As he approached the bus door, he lit another piece of paper and threw it on the floor. The puddle ignited immediately, and McCloud ran from the bus.
IMPD officers located McCloud in a nearby McDonald’s parking lot holding two butane lighters in his hand.
During this incident, a passenger who had been on the bus exited to help direct traffic.
While assisting, the wind direction suddenly changed, causing a large plume of smoke to envelope the victim. He was transported to the hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation.
During the investigation, officers learned that four days earlier, on April 20, 2024, McCloud walked onto the IndyGo Red Line Virginia Avenue and New Jersey Street bus depot and set a fire inside the trash can.
He watched it burn for nearly a minute before walking away. The fire grew inside of the trash can until IFD arrived.
IndyGo operates their public transportation buses under the Federal Transit Administration.
The bus depot and trash can were funded in part by federal financial assistance, specifically federal grant monies. The bus was destroyed by the fire and the depot was damaged, causing approximately $1,790,685 in damages.
McCloud has a 25-year history of violent crime, including multiple felony convictions for crimes including battery causing serious injury, firearm possession by a violent felon, burglary, attempted auto theft, drug offenses, trespassing offenses, and intimidation.
He has threatened to kill police and their families, assaulted officers, attacked a woman with a broken pavement piece after she refused him money at a stop light, threatened to rob, rape, and murder another woman, and even violently assaulted his own mother.
“This defendant’s reckless actions endangered innocent lives, destroyed public property, and wasted nearly $2 million in taxpayer-funded resources,” said Tom Wheeler, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, said in a news release. “Federal dollars are invested in our communities to serve and protect the public, not to be torched by a violent repeat offender with no regard for human life. Thanks to the swift response of first responders and the dedication of our federal and local law enforcement partners, he has been held accountable for his dangerous and destructive conduct.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and IMPD investigated this case.
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