Phoenix authorities announced the arrest of a person suspected of lighting a mailbox on fire that contained several election ballots.

The city fire department’s Arson Investigation Taskforce took into custody a man named Dieter Klofkorn, who admitted to lighting a piece of paper on fire before putting it into a mailbox owned by the United States Postal Service, according to the Phoenix Police Department. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego said the fire damaged multiple ballots.

Officers arrested Klofkorn for an unrelated warrant before interviewing him about the fire while he was in custody, Sgt. Rob Scherer told reporters. Klofkorn admitted to arson during that interview, according to Scherer.

He indicated his reason for doing so was, simply put, to be arrested. “He had a desire for that,” the sergeant said. “Why that was his desire — we did not get that far into it.”

Scherer noted in a press release that Klofkorn was charged with arson of property. Klofkorn told police he didn’t know there were ballots in the mailbox, according to the sergeant.

“I understand the concern of this, being we’re in early voting period with the election. I understand the potential that there was some concern that this was politically motivated or related to the election,” he said. “We were assured by the suspect this wasn’t.”

Gallego posted on social media that she was concerned about the fire.

“There is zero tolerance for criminal activity in our community, and we are working collaboratively with every level of government to bring the perpetrator to justice,” she wrote on X.

Scherer noted that while the police department understood concerns about the incident that were expressed throughout the day, the task force never believed the alleged arson was politically motivated.

“There was never any … information that led us to believe that this was maybe election related or anything like that,” he said. “We never got any hint or any detail that told us this might be.”

Have a news tip? Contact Ray Lewis at rjlewis@sbgtv.com or at x.com/rayjlewis.