Man douses Thousand Oaks pizzeria worker with lighter fluid, threatens to light him on fire
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - A man was arrested in Thousand Oaks over the weekend after allegedly threatening to light an employee at a local pizza place on fire.
It happened at Allegro Pizza Sunday afternoon. It was before the restaurant had opened, around 1:45 p.m., according to Allegro owner Raul Ferrero. One of the cooks was preparing the pies for his shift when a man came into the restaurant.
The man, identified as Robert Haight, walked into the restaurant with his small dog and approached the cook, shooting him with some liquid.
"He thought it was a joke," Ferrero said of his cook. "He thought it was water. When he smelled the gasoline that was when he reacted."
The cook had been sprayed with lighter fluid. That's when he ran back into the kitchen. Haight followed him, but not before picking up a knife from the prep kitchen.
The scene is captured on the restaurant's surveillance cameras — the cook walks into the kitchen with a chef's knife in one hand and a head of lettuce in the other. Haight follows, knife in one hand, along with the dog's leash and a small bottle in the other.
The two then make their way out the back door of the restaurant. That's when a good Samaritan jumped in. A man in a truck jumped out and tried to intervene, but he was doused with lighter fluid as well.
"I just pulled up, and the guy just got knocked out," one witness told FOX 11. The good Samaritan came at Haight, knocking him out. "His head is bleeding and there was another guy in the parking lot, and he was saying, ‘You need to get out of here, or I’m going to knock you out again.’"
Police arrived at the scene after the good Samaritan jumped in, and Haight was taken into custody. Haight is facing charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and assault with a caustic chemical, according to Thousand Oaks Police. His bail was set at $500,000.
The dog Haight was seen dragging through the pizzeria's kitchen and was brought to a shelter.