CHICAGO — Prosecutors have charged a woman with setting fire to merchandise inside a downtown Target store. Judge Susana Ortiz ordered the detention of Brittny Brown, 39, on one count of arson.
Officials said video showed Brown entering the store at 1 South State and heading to the second floor around 6 p.m. on November 23. She proceeded to set fire to “multiple items which were displayed for sale,” a Chicago police report said. According to a criminal complaint, those items included shelving, bedding, bathing items, “perishables,” and dog treats. Prosecutors estimated the damages to be $672.33.
Loss prevention officers extinguished the fire and detained Brown, a CPD report said. No injuries were reported. Officials did not offer a motive for the incident.
Ortiz’s detention order states Brown has had six felony convictions that resulted in prison time.
The same store suffered an arson fire in September 2023 that prosecutors now say was set as a diversion for a robbery scheme.
Ronald Langley, 26, was given a ten-year sentence this summer for setting the fire. Officials said he entered the store, went to the second floor, grabbed a can of WD-40, and then used it to set a blanket on fire on a display shelf.
Although there were no reported injuries, officials estimated that the store’s damage exceeded $100,000. Police arrested Langley at a different Target store about two weeks after the fire when a loss prevention officer recognized him.
Not long after Langley pleaded guilty, prosecutors charged a second man with robbery and arson, saying the fire was meant to serve as a distraction while the second man stole cellular phones from Target’s electronics department.
While customers and Target employees were distracted by the fire or evacuating the building, 37-year-old Kenneth Hasley was secreted near the elevators, officials said. When the coast was clear, Hasley allegedly stepped out of hiding and used a crowbar to break a display case in the electronics department. He scooped up phones worth $2,017 and headed toward the door, prosecutors said in a detention petition.
Even with the fire blazing elsewhere in the store, a Target security guard tried to prevent Hasley from leaving with the merchandise. Prosecutors said Hasley pepper sprayed the guard and fled.
In a separate matter, a grand jury has indicted Halsey on multiple counts of arson and criminal damage in connection with a fire that was set inside a guest room at the Radisson Hotel Schaumburg, 1550 North Roselle, on November 22, 2022. No specific details about the suburban incident were immediately available.
