(CNN) — Call it good timing, divine intervention or just dumb luck.
What started out as a wee-hours traffic stop wound up catapulting a 30-year-old California real estate attorney and reserve sheriff’s deputy into an unfamiliar — and uncomfortable — role: that of hero.
It was Shervin Lalezary who put the cuffs on Harry Burkhart, a 24-year-old German national whom Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca called “perhaps … the most dangerous arsonist in the county of Los Angeles that I can recall.”
Burkhart is suspected of setting a rash of car and building fires across the city. Following his arrest, no more suspicious fires were documented in Los Angeles, authorities said.
