Meet Monique “Burn The Block Down” Riley… She has a history of destroying other people’s property, getting in fights with her ex-boyfriend’s relatives and beating up the competition, but nothing quite compares to her latest alleged crime — setting the WHOLE DAMN HOOD ON FIRE.
Monique Riley, 32, of 19th Street near Wingohocking, was arrested yesterday afternoon and charged with aggravated assault, arson and related offenses.
According to her ex, Ouris Alston Jr., 35, Riley came to the East Germantown home where he lives with his parents, ticked off and demanding he give back money that he says he never took to begin with. Alston Jr. said he was sleeping in the living room when he heard the front window screen scraping open at about 3 a.m. He went to the door and found Riley trying to get inside. He then shut the screen, told her to leave and went back to sleep. But within thirty minutes he says he smelled gasoline.
“I looked outside and she was standing on the [porch]. She threw the match, and everything just caught on fire,” a stunned Alston said. “I went upstairs to get my family [out of the house].”
The flames quickly tore through the first floor and Alston, his parents, brother and two young daughters ran for a rear, second-floor window, pushed out the air-conditioner, jumped onto the roof where they were fortunate enough to find a ladder leaning against the recently repaired roof.
“The fire was all over the house by then; it was like two seconds behind us,” said Ouris Alston Sr.
A fire spokesman said it took the department 34 minutes to get the blaze under control. Three rowhouses on Alston’s block were completely destroyed, while the fire damaged at least six more houses nearby. No one was injured aside from Riley, who suffered burns on her leg before calling the cab that took her away from the scene of the crime.
“The b– is crazy, what else can I say?” Ouris Jr.’s mother, Shirley Henson-Alston, 59, said. “All this because she’s pissed off at my son. I think the girl needs some mental help.”
But Riley had a history of violence that Alston, Jr. probably should have paid more attention to. The couple had fought often, and she once had an all-out brawl with his father that ended up with her in the hospital and his dad under arrest.
Had Alston done a background check he might have found evidence of the 2006 incident when Riley was accused of trying to blow up her former employer’s home:
In that case, a North Philadelphia woman told police that Riley called her on Aug. 1, 2006, and said: “I hope you like your house.”
When the woman got home from work an hour later, she found her door kicked open, according to court records. Inside, the stove had been turned on, leaving the house to fill with explosive gas. The intruder ransacked the house, bleached the resident’s clothes and stole $2,000 worth of electronics, according to court documents.
Police arrested Riley after a witness said that he’d seen her at the victim’s home. The victim also said Riley, her former babysitter, had left a threatening voice mail the previous day saying she “was coming to get her stuff.”
She was charged with risking a catastrophe, burglary and related offenses, according to court documents, but prosecutors withdrew charges for unknown reasons in April 2007.
In another incident, back in October of 2000, Riley confronted another woman after hearing her boyfriend had cheated with her:
She went to the woman’s house, knocked on the door and, when the woman came to the door, fired pepper spray in her face and knocked her unconscious with an unknown object, according to court records. A judge in 2001 dismissed aggravated-assault and related charges for reasons unspecified in court records.
Both cases resulted the victims filing for restraining orders against Riley.
“It should have never come to this. She put not only my family in jeopardy, but she put a lot of [other] lives on the line,” Alston Jr. said yesterday. “She’s a grown woman. She’s 32 years old. She deserves whatever the law brings her way.”
Riley’s relatives have since come to her defense, claiming that past domestic abuse and a problem with drug addiction were likely to blame for her behavior.
“It seems like she’s the demon, but there’s two sides to every story,” her sister Dyanne Riley said.
But Alston’s neighbors were less sympathetic.
“If she’s so abused, how come she keeps coming back ’round all the time?” said neighbor William Davis, 45, whose home incurred smoke damage. “Ouris ain’t the best person in the world either, but he ain’t tried to burn us up. I don’t want to hear that dumb old stuff.”
WOW… Just… WOW… ‘When A Woman’s Fed Up’ forreals!
All our peoples in Philly, please BEWARE of this broad.
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