Forty years ago, in 1982, a mentally ill man set fire to the Bell and Hudson Law Firm on the 8th Floor of the Buhl Building, testing first responders like never before.
Robert Leonard Harrington, upset about an insurance settlement check he hadn’t received, stormed the offices armed with two guns and a jar of gasoline.
He shot killed a young intern in the office, Eve August. He then set fire to the building, forcing people to the windows just two floors higher than Detroit fire apparatus could reach at the time.
Click on Detroit revisited that day, talking with those who were there and survived the massacre.