Rinderknecht got out of his car and hiked up the trail, past a sign stating “Danger” and “No Fires/Smoking,” toward a small clearing sometimes called the “Hidden Buddha” for a hollowed out stump where people placed Buddha figurines.
At 11:47 p.m., he took out his iPhone and captured a 360-degree video of the area. Seven minutes later he played the song “Un Zder, Un Thé” by the French rapper Josman, about despair and bitterness.
There, by himself, with the world stretched out below, Rinderknecht entered into the New Year.
Months before the fire, Rinderknecht had sent curious prompts to ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence app, according to the affidavit.
In July, he asked ChatGPT to produce a “dystopian painting” with three distinct parts, the affidavit says.
“On the far left, there is a burning forest. Next to it, a crowd of people is running away from the fire,” he wrote. “In the middle, hundreds of thousands of people in poverty are trying to get past a gigantic gate with a big dollar sign on it. On the other side of the gate and the entire wall is a conglomerate of the richest people. They are chilling, watching the world burn down, and watching the people struggle.”
After several more failed attempts, his 911 call finally connected at 12:17 a.m. and he reported the presence of a fire, the affidavit states.
During that call, he went to his ChatGPT app and asked a question: “Are you at fault if a fire is lift [sic] because of your cigarettes,” according to the affidavit.
He made a screen-recording on his iPhone of several attempted 911 calls and his question to ChatGPT, the affidavit states. That action “indicates that Rinderknecht wanted to preserve evidence of himself trying to assist in the suppression of the fire and he wanted to create evidence regarding a more innocent explanation for the cause of the fire,” according to the affidavit.
Depends on what you mean by “all that.” Some parts are easy:
He made a video of his location so one can know when and where he was. It’s reasonable to assume that he followed a trail to that place, past a sign.
Assuming law enforcement gained access to his phone, his YouTube view history would show that he listened to that song. If he played it on the Apple music app, it keeps a record of when every song was last played — maybe all the plays.
With access to his iPhone, ChatGPT prompts could also be found.
911 calls are logged and time stamped.
Speculations about his motives in calling 911 are conjectural but not unreasonable, especially in the context of his query about cigarettes. Access to the perp’s iPhone explains most of the information. It’s also true that news media embellish their stories but this report is more straightforwardly honest that the average CNN piece.
Breitbart News reported in January that the City of Los Angeles was reluctant to assign firefighters to Pacific Palisades before the high-wind event of January 7, thanks to budget cuts by Mayor Karen Bass that made overtime pay more difficult for the city to afford. (The city spent more on homeless services than on firefighting.)
The battalion chief listed as being on duty the day firefighters were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, Mario Garcia, did not respond to requests for comment.
Mario Garcia was promoted in 2023, perhaps as a part of the “diversification” initiative by Crowley:
Fire Chief Kristin M. Crowley oversaw a formal promotion ceremony at the LAFD Frank Hotchkin Memorial Training Center.
An aerial view of a neighborhood destroyed by the Palisades Fire on May 07, 2025 in Pacific Palisades, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
The Palisades Fire, which broke out during the first week of January, quickly spread throughout the community on Jan. 7, ripping through 23,000 acres, destroying 6,837 structures, damaging another 973 and ultimately killing 12 people. Survivors told Republican senators during a Nov. 13 field hearing that many residents were essentially left to die.
Edit:
According to Bass, more than 1,200 rebuilding plans have been approved for over 600 addresses in the Palisades, and more than 1,000 permits have been issued for roughly 515 addresses. However, residents decried the process’ slow pace and steep cost, with some previously stating total permit fees could run as high as $70,000, according to the Westside Current.
Nearly a year after the Santa Ynez reservoir was offline, empty, and unavailable during the apocalyptic wildfires, Los Angeles has once again decided to take the Santa Ynez reservoir offline, and it will once again be empty and unavailable. pic.twitter.com/SwbA1IzEio
Those occupying California don’t see this as a bloody nose. They see it as evidence they have conquered some of the most valuable land in the world. For them, defense of their land claim is the “vote” as abstract force.
“Nya nya nya, whatcha gonna to do about it?” Where are the “it” is “our” democracy.
That the “do” may entail a world beyond horror is a bug or feature depending on whether the possessed or possessing spirit evaluates.
