Richard Tillman, brother of late NFL star and army enlistee Pat Tillman, has been arrested after crashing a car into a post office in San Jose, California, early on Sunday. The crash caused the building to catch fire, and Tillman has been booked on suspicion of arson.
The incident occurred shortly before 3am at a post office located in a strip mall south of downtown San Jose. No injuries were reported. Approximately 50 firefighters took about an hour and a half to extinguish the flames. Photos posted online by the fire department showed a charred car inside the heavily damaged building.
According to NBC Bay Area, the suspect told officers at the scene that he was Pat Tillman's brother. Pat Tillman, a San Jose native, was a safety for the Arizona Cardinals who left a multimillion-dollar contract to serve in Iraq after the September 11 attacks. He was killed in Afghanistan in 2004, with the Pentagon initially covering up that his death resulted from friendly fire.
The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office inmate locator showed Richard Tillman was booked on Sunday and held without bail. ABC News later reported that he was booked on suspicion of arson. Federal investigators are also looking into spray-painted words found on the post office building, including the phrase "viva la me," as well as claims that the driver livestreamed the crash.
No further information about charges has been released. The US Postal Inspection Service has been contacted for additional details. San Jose, with a metropolitan area of nearly 2 million people, is located about 50 miles south of San Francisco.
