A massive 1.2-million-square-foot warehouse in Ontario was still on fire when videos began to appear on social media platforms.
Holding a phone camera with one hand and a lighter in the other, Chamel Abdulkarim is heard in the video listing off complaints about not being paid enough to get by. Authorities allege he methodically set fire to a Kimberly-Clark paper goods warehouse, causing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of losses.
“You know, if you’re not going to pay us enough to f— live or to afford to live, at least pay us enough not to do this,” he is heard saying in a video on his Instagram page as another packet of toilet paper is set aflame. “All you had to do is pay us enough to live.”
And with that, a spectacular arson fire that leveled the complex took on a political dimension. Abdulkarim has since been charged in the fire, and authorities intend to use his words and images against him. They argue his motive was clear: Harm the company he worked for. In the process, prosecutors have argued in court, he put the lives of co-workers and firefighters at risk.
The case is shaping to up be a legal — and moral — showdown over whether Abdulkarim’s alleged grievances against capitalism with the fire should play a factor in how the court system judges him. Is he simply an arson suspect or a crusader for a more just workplace?
Abdulkarim has pleaded not guilty to the charges. His defense attorneys in court have pointed to his motives, arguing that the 30-year-old should be released while he awaits trial because his “target” wasn’t to hurt people, but corporate profits.
If the case — and the moral and legal questions around it — sounds familiar, that is understandable.
Abdulkarim compared himself to Luigi Mangione in multiple calls and texts.
Mangione is the 27-year-old accused of killing the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare and touted by some as a sort of folk hero for his anticapitalist manifesto. He admitted in federal court last week to stalking and eventually killing the business executive in an execution outside a Manhattan hotel.
Mangione became a folk hero to some, at least for a while. But his attorneys have pushed back against comparisons or linking Mangione to other incidents.
“As we have stated before in multiple public court filings, Mr. Mangione does not support violent actions and does not condone past or future political violence,” his attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said in a statement in April. “These repeated attempts to connect him to unrelated acts or to insinuate that he condones or supports these acts are irresponsible, dangerous and prejudicial.”
Abdulkarim’s case has gotten far less attention, but he too has his defenders.
“I’m not saying he right but, guess what, I’m not saying that man is wrong either,” one user on TikTok mused as a news clip of the massive fire played alongside. “People are fed up. Not only do jobs work you to the bone, they barely pay you enough money to get to work.”
The case is resonating especially strongly in corners of Southern California where massive warehouses and the booming logistics economy have brought new jobs but also some complaints.
Workplace conflicts
A naturalized citizen who was born in Syria, Abdulkarim had at least one clash with an employer before the fire.
In February 2024, he filed suit against PrimeFlight Aviation Services, alleging the company had failed to provide meal periods, breaks and accurate wages. According to court filings, Abdulkarim and the company settled out of court and the case was dismissed in January 2025.
Court records also suggest he was struggling financially, with lenders and credit card companies looking to collect.
Eight months after his suit against PrimeFlight Aviation Services was settled, Abdulkarim was sued for allegedly defaulting on his credit card, with $2,927 in unpaid debt. That case is still pending.
It’s unclear how long he worked at Kimberly-Clark. He is 30 and lived in Highland, about 25 miles from Ontario.
Abdulkarim burst into public view the night of the fire, when he appeared to live stream it from inside the warehouse.
It didn’t take long for police to find him. Eighteen workers were evacuated from the building, according to court filings, but Abdulkarim was noticeably missing.
Police officials allege they found him two miles away, still in possession of the lighter with the FC Bayern Munich soccer club logo seen in the Instagram videos. According to federal prosecutors, he’d called and texted friends and co-workers explaining why he’d set fire to the facility.
“Pay us more of the value WE bring. Not corporate,” Abdulkarim allegedly texted a co-worker, accoding to federal prosecutors in a complaint. “Didn’t see the share holders picking up a shift.”
His sister and brother did not respond to a request for comment.
“I’m not even close to that side of the family, so I got nothing for you,” Abdulkarim’s brother-in-law said when reached by phone.
Criminal complaints filed against Abdulkarim in state and federal court show the videos are now a vital part of the case against the warehouse forklift driver, evidence identifying him as the culprit who allegedly ignited the massive fire.
A legal battle: Who was harmed
The fire was massive.
Flames quickly spread across the massive Kimberly-Clark facility, which stretched out across nearly a dozen city blocks. State and federal prosecutors allege the fire destroyed about $500 million in paper products stored inside and caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage to the building.
In recent court hearings, Abdulkarim’s reason for allegedly lighting the goods on fire has played a central role.
His attorneys at the public defender’s office have argued he should be released on bail because the charges against him, and his alleged motivations, were aimed at property, not against people.
“When we look at the alleged facts in this case, they overwhelmingly suggest that the accused target here was corporate profits,” Abdulkarim’s attorney, deputy public defender Matthew Magorien argued during a June 10 custody hearing. “It involves violence against a multibillion-dollar corporation. But even if you stretch the facts, in no way does it involve violence towards other persons.”
Magorien declined to comment on the case.
But in court, Magorien said his client should be released on his own recognizance, arguing he was not charged with a violent crime or capital offense, nor was there “convincing evidence” he was a danger to anyone else.
“The allegations in this case involve violence against toilet paper,” Magorien told the judge.
Prosecutors, however, argued the opposite.
“This is a violent crime,” said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Linda Metz. “There were 18 employees present at the warehouse at the time that the defendant was starting these fires. He had knowledge that people worked at this warehouse.”
Metz also argued that Abdulkarim’s distaste for capitalism, the economy and the U.S. government “indicates his intent to harm other people and the community.”
San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Joni I. Sinclair sided with prosecutors and ordered Abdulkarim held without bail.
In his ruling, Sinclair said that regardless of Abdulkarim’s motive, setting the warehouse on fire knowing that there were people suggested Abdulkarim was aware someone could have been seriously hurt.
“Setting a fire such as this magnitude, it’s obvious, under these circumstances, that someone could be injured,” Sinclair said. “Whether or not the defendant had the intent to actually harm someone, setting a fire alone under those circumstances was likely to injure, or could have injured, more than one person.”
His attorneys have now taken their arguments to the Court of Appeal.
“The harm was exclusively financial, and the only target was corporate profits,” Abdulkarim’s attorneys wrote in their filing for an appeal, pointing out that he worked more than 40 hours a week driving forklifts and did not have a violent or criminal history.
In turn, prosecutors are repeating their arguments that the defendant is a threat to more than paper goods and profits, as his attorney proclaims.
“Because defendant was unhappy with his employer, the economy, capitalism, and the government, he set ablaze pallets of highly flammable toilet paper inside this warehouse,” prosecutors wrote in their motion. If no one was hurt, they argued, it was because of “providence — not anything that the defendant did to mitigate the risk of death to his coworkers.”
Stanley Goldman, a professor at Loyola Law School, said it’s uncommon to see attorneys making an ideological argument for their client, but the tactic can sometimes be used to try to “short-circuit” prosecutors’ allegations that the intent was to harm people, or to preemptively try to get a lighter sentence.
“You fight in trial, but sometimes you just do those arguments with an eye toward making your client look less culpable,” Goldman said.
But, Goldman said, there’s the possibility Abdulkarim’s attorneys are only making these arguments for bail consideration and would abandon them at trial. Airing political grievances on any side of the ideological spectrum during a trial can cut both ways with a jury, Goldman said.
There could be “some people in the jury that find that kind of politics to be dangerously despicable,” he said.
Online debate
The appeals court has yet to decide if Abdulkarim will remain in jail as he awaits trial. But online, snippets of the Ontario fire videos are being shared, fueling grievances over the growing cost of living and stagnant wages.
“I think it’s pretty obvious that the American workforce is drowning, the cost of living is absolutely through the roof and keeps going up, and wages aren’t moving,” one TikTok user said in a video.
But others were less swayed, noting Abdulkarim’s alleged actions cost some co-workers their jobs.
To those paying attention to what’s transpired over the last few years, the debate playing out online is not a surprise, said Brian Levin, founding director at the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism.
“There’s a decent amount of folks, millions nationally, who subscribe to violence as a legitimate means of resolving political disputes,” Levin said. “There’s lack of hope, and acceptance of violence.”
That doesn’t mean the same people would employ violence, Levin said, but studies have shown that more people across the ideological spectrum in the United States are willing to offer a sympathetic ear to it than in the past.
A Kettering Foundation/Gallup Democracy for All Project pollthat surveyed more than 20,000 adults in 2025 found that while most Americans still believed violence was “never OK,” about 16% believed it was “sometimes OK.” Younger adults, between the ages of 18 to 29, were more likely than others to say violence was sometimes OK, especially those with heavy social media use, according to the study.
Much of the political violence documented in previous years had stemmed from the right wing, Levin said, but that has changed dramatically in the last two years.
“We have a rising tide of political vitriol, and it lifts all boats,” Levin said.
In the meantime, Abdulkarim remains in custody awaiting trial. Demolition of the warehouse in Ontario took place in June. During Kimberly-Clark’s second-quarter earnings call this month, the company reported its net sales in North America decreased 1.2% in the quarter, including 0.7% in organic sales, citing the fire and “a combination of changes in retail inventories.”
The company reported $2.7 billion in net sales in North America.
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