MINERAL WELLS The Palo Pinto County town of Mineral Wells is rocked by the news that one of its police officers is behind bars, charged with arson.
John Clifford Gore grew up in Mineral Wells and had been on the police force for three years. He was also planning to be married soon.
Gore was stopped because his truck matched the description of a vehicle reported speeding in the area of three early morning fires, police said.
Agas can was found in the bed ofhis truck and he smelled of smoke.
Our investigators confronted him with the evidence, and ultimately he was arrested, said Mineral Wells police Chief Mike McAllester.
Sharlet Evans has known John Gore since he was a little boy. But today, to her, he seems more like a stranger.
Nobody saw this coming... no one, she said. Not our police chief, not his family... not anybody.
Gorehas been charged with two counts of arson and one count of arson with injury. He has been on the force for three years and,according to his police chief, has had no previous issues on the force.
Gorehas had a visible presence as a patrolman in Mineral Wells. One of the three fires he is accused of setting on Monday night in a Mineral Wells industrial park sent a volunteer firefighter tohospital.
Another fire turned a two-story former army barrack into nothing but rubble.
At a nearby family business, more than $1 million of uninsured aviation memorabilia, which was being saved for a future museum, was destroyed.
The owners, who are from Mineral Wells, say they are heartbroken. They said they have known Gore since he went to school with their son.
It was devastating, especially since I knew him, Evans said. I've known this man since he was very young. Shock doesn't even cover it.
Gore's Facebook page reveals his excitement over his upcoming wedding. Gore, a father of two, had already embraced his fiancee's five-year-old son as his own. His fiancee's page proudly displays family portraits with all the boys.
John got lost somewhere along the way, Evans concluded. There's a part of him that got lost; this is the result of it.
Gore's future family seemed to stand by him, with a note on his fiancee's Facebook page saying she wished people wouldn't always believe everything they read or hear.
It has been a tough couple of days, Chief McAllester said. I think we can take comfort in the fact that we're charged with protecting the public and doing what we're supposed to do, and I think we did in this instance.
The chief added there may be more arrests. A potential acccomplice has been questioned, and McAllester said other charges against both Gore and that person are possible.
E-mail cvega@wfaa.com and chawes@wfaa.com
