Did Live Oak, California’s Brian Johnson steal a firefighter’s wallet amid the August Complex fire?

Brian Lee Johnson, 37, of Live Oak, Sutter County, California, United States has confessed to stealing a California Department of Fire Protection (Cal Fire) firefighter’s wallet. It belonged to a fire ground commander on the front lines of the department’s San Mateo-Santa Cruz Unit fighting the August Lightning Complex fire in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, which started on August 16, 2020.

From the evening of August 21, 2020 to the morning of August 22, 2020, the Cal Fire firefighter helped contain the massive blaze around Santa Cruz. During this period, his pickup truck was parked at the Bonny Doon Fire Station on Empire Grade Road in Santa Cruz.

After breaking into the vehicle, Johnson stole personal items including the firefighter’s wallet containing credit cards while the latter was working overnight. A surveillance video captured Johnson using one of the firefighter’s stolen credit cards at a Safeway grocery store on 41st Avenue in Soquel, Santa Cruz County, California and at a Shell gas station on 41st Avenue in Capitola, Santa Cruz County.

In the video, Johnson was wearing a green SF Giants hat, black and white checkered face mask, black t-shirt, blue jeans and black Vans shoes. A citizen who saw the video tipped off the authorities.

During a probation search of Johnson’s residence in Live Oak on the evening of August 26, 2020, he was wearing the same clothes shown in the surveillance video Detectives arrested him on multiple felony charges including forgery, grand theft, credit card theft, possession of stolen property and a probation violation.

Johnson was booked into in the Santa Cruz County Jail in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz County. After confessing to the crime, he wrote a letter of apology to the fireman.

“The truth is that the fireman left his wallet on the counter of a gas station and the person who worked at the gas station is an acquaintance of Brian’s,” Johnson’s girlfriend Madison Knight told KPIX. “He took the wallet and then brought one of the cards and presented it to Brian and Brian made the mistake of using it.”