MAN ON FIRE

[Photo: Raymond Purnell, courtesy WTOC.]

Phillip Seabrian holds a lit gas nozzle, standing still, looking at City of Savannah Police Officer Raymond Purnell outside the Shell gas station he was recently banned from. 

On Phillip’s face, dark lines run down his cheeks. On his forehead are more dark lines that follow the creases, self-inflicted tattoos created by a hot knife. He’s spent years abusing and deforming his body because of a mind racked with pain.

The gas station sits just off the busy Highway 80/Abercorn Extension where at this time of day, thousands of residents move from the college across the street and the army base behind it to their homes for the evening, crossing a few yards from the standoff. 

Officer Purnell freezes in place. Phillip points the fire at his chest and squeezes the handle hoping for self-immolation, blind to the people around him.  Officer Purnell takes a breath. He knows he has to make a choice. 

It’s 6:40 p.m. on October 23, 2020.

In 2018, Officer Purnell entered active duty for the City of Savannah Police department. Growing up in Chicago, he witnessed violence early in his life, he recalls. He was exposed to more during his time in the military and three deployments to Afghanistan with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division. He refuses to share details from those days. He does share that his time in the military and on the police force taught him to pause and analyze situations before reacting, to reign in his emotions before making a choice. 

In 2019, Officer Purnell was patrolling his regular beat on the Southside of Savannah when he encountered Phillip on a bench behind a library. Southside residents who are without housing often use the benches as beds. It was a cold night. Officer Purnell gave Phillip a blanket to help keep him warm. Another day, and during another encounter, at the EnMarket across from the Shell, Phillip told the officer he was thirsty but had no money. Officer Purnell gave him a couple bucks for food and drink. Phillip, who deals with around six police officers on a regular basis, affectionately calls him “Purnell” on his good days. 

Over the last two and a half decades, Phillip Seabrian has tried to kill himself 15 times. When he was 14, he almost succeeded after taking a pair of scissors to his arm, leaving deep lacerations, but missing the main artery. He confesses to debilitating mental illness and a professional diagnosis of schizophrenia and PTSD—confirmed by multiple people in his life—that’s related to childhood trauma.

On the night of October 23, 2020, around 6:30 p.m., Officer Maraschiello drove his patrol car through the Walmart parking lot by the four-lane Abercorn Street. Candice Champion, a Walmart employee, flagged him down and pointed out a man walking away from the Walmart. She told Officer Maraschiello the man shoplifted from the store. Officer Maraschiello confronted Phillip. “My brother needed some t-shirts,” he said, admitting to his crime. Phillip then dropped two packs of t-shirts on the ground and bolted. 

Officer Maraschiello yelled at him to stop. But Phillip ignored the command, shouting back, “I am going to commit suicide.” Phillip darted down the side of the busy highway and then across it, dodging the heavy traffic, afraid of being arrested again. 

Less than two miles away, Officer Purnell drove his cruiser through the parking lot of a hospital. He clocked in at the Southside Station at 6 p.m. The moon was nearly full that night, and he had a feeling it was going to be a wild one. His radio crackled with the sound of his patrol partner, Officer Maraschiello saying he was now in a foot pursuit with a shoplifting suspect.

Officer Purnell turned his car towards the Walmart. On Apache Street, when he spotted the man dart towards the back of the Shell, he flipped on his lights and sirens.

When Phillip Seabrian first met his ex-wife—who has asked not to be named— in the early 2000s, she remembers him as a handsome man who was kind. In 2003, their first daughter was born. They married on Valentine’s Day 2005, three months before their second daughter was born. Phillip calls his daughters “my angel face babies” because they saved his life. He enrolled at South University as a Psychology major at one point. At home, he remembers a fun environment with his daughters, one of positive vibes and lots of electronics. 

Although he’s struggled with depression for most of his life, at 22—the year his second daughter was born—things start getting worse. His ex-wife took him to a health clinic, they referred him to another behavioral health clinic. He was put on medication and for a few years, things seem to settle for the divorced couple and their daughters. 

In 2017, his ex-wife caught him using hard drugs, a red line for her. She left him and took their daughters. 

In August of 2017, Phillip and his ex-wife and one of their daughters were in a store. Phillip began verbally abusing her in front of the employees, trying to get $40.00. The next day, a dope dealer called Phillip’s ex-wife asking about $60 he was owed. 

One day, after the couple separated, Phillip called his ex-wife and said their daughter, who was with him, was hungry and needed some food. She showed up with Carey Hilliards’ takeout. Phillip jumped in the car, manic, grabbed her phone and threatened her while searching for her wallet. She screamed and honked the horn until he finally left. The ongoing violence was reported and a protective order was filed in Chatham County Superior Court in September of 2017. Phillip claims he didn’t know about the protective order for nine months after it was filed. Until one day, when his ex-wife was fighting with him and she brought it up. 

A divorce was issued in October, 2018. Phillip has been houseless ever since. 

His daughters are now grown, living in another city. His ex-wife blames a rough childhood for Phillip’s descent into drugs and alcohol abuse. But she says he wasn’t a bad man. For years, she took him to therapy. He took medication that worked, but would often stop taking it. He openly admits to being molested and abused as a child and that his life has been one tragedy after another since he was four years old. 

Phillip, driven to the streets by his mental health and drug abuse, has good days and bad. On a good day, he would sometimes stop in the Shell gas station in the morning and buy something small, chatting with attendant Emmanuel Tugumisirize. On a bad day, he loitered outside and begged for money from the customers. Emmanuel was forced to ban him from the store when customers kept complaining. 

The Shell is familiar territory for Phillip, and on October 23, that is where he intended to die. 

Officer Purnell parks his patrol car at the gas station and jumps out. “Phillip” he shouts. He recognizes him from the color of his hair—bleached tips. It’s the same man he gave a blanket to on a cold winter day. It's the same man he bought a drink for at the EnMarket across from the Shell. 

 Phillip turns to him, “I am going to kill myself.” As a car pulls out at pump six, Phillip grabs the nozzle. 

The Perkins family are parked feet away at pump seven. Troy Perkins is walking into the station, leaving his wife and daughter in the car. Phillip lights the nozzle, it catches flame. Mrs. Perkins begins screaming. Officer Purnell approaches, firearm drawn, with Officer Maraschiello behind him. 

Troy Perkins yells at the police to holster their guns. His wife and daughter are too close. Troy wants to run to his family, but is afraid the police might shoot him. He yells at his wife to get out of the way. 

Officer Purnell stops in place, his vision goes narrow. Phillip stands still, the nozzle ablaze in his hands, serious about his intentions, looking at Officer Purnell with the potential flamethrower.

Phillip’s only thought is suicide. It’s been a tough week. Two days before, on a phone call with his youngest daughter, she told him she doesn’t want to see him anymore. Not until he straightens his life out. His oldest daughter’s birthday is a few weeks away. He knows he won’t make it. Phillip’s ready. 

Tonight, he hopes if he ups the anti and turns to a different mechanism of suicide, it will work this time. He’s been fantasizing about this moment. He’s stood here in this position before, at a gas station with a lit gas nozzle. But he was alone in that dream. No one was around. His fantasy of self harm by immolation has been forced into realty tonight by the police chase. He thinks about his grown daughters. 

Officer Purnell’s tunnel vision breaks. He backs up. For a split second, he sees the ground swell in a fireball that consumes them all. He pauses, not wanting to overreact, analyzing what is happening.

Innocent bystanders come into Officer Purnell’s focus. He begins shouting for them to back away. He yells at Mrs. Perkins to get out of the vehicle and get her child to safety. Consumed with fear, she doesn’t move. Finally, she gets out of the way. Officer Purnell keeps an eye on Phillip, thinking about the people in the gas station and the heavy rush-hour traffic on Abercorn Street behind them. He has to make a choice. Officer Purnell keeps his distance. 

The flame goes out. Phillip lights it again. Officer Purnell shouts for everyone to back away. “I am going to kill myself,” Phillip yells as he points the lit nozzle at his own chest and squeezes the handle. But no flames shoot out. The fire goes out instead. He keeps repeating his desire for death. 

Moments before, inside the station, the first thing Emmanuel heard was Mrs. Perkins screaming. He thought someone was fighting in the parking lot. He left the register and walked over to the window. He spotted Phillip, attempting to light the nozzle. He recognized him and his first thought was he’s trying to burn down the station. Maybe as an act of revenge for being banned. Emmanuel hit a big red button behind the counter, shutting off the gas flow to the pumps. 

When Phillip lights the nozzle a third time, the little bit of gas that remains in the line ignites again. And again he points the nozzle at this chest. Officer Purnell calls for backup and the fire department but he knows he’s got to act now. 

Officer Purnell holsters his weapon, rushes forward and slaps the flaming nozzle from Phillip’s hands. It drops to the ground. Officer Purnell seizes Phillip and wrestles him to the ground while Officer Maraschiello secures Phillip’s legs and helps cuff him.

Officer Maraschiello stands up and steps on the nozzle, trying to exhaust the flame. But it is still lit. Emmanuel, who has rushed outside with the intention of tackling Phillip, comes up from behind and grabs the nozzle and plunges it in the wiper fluid container by the pump. The fire goes out. 

Everyone is safe. 

Phillip was charged with one felony count of arson, one misdemeanor count of theft by shoplifting, one misdemeanor count of obstruction of an officer, one misdemeanor count of reckless conduct and two misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass. His bond was denied. Phillip was booked with a cellphone, watch, a pair of headphones and 25 cents.

After being incarcerated in October, Phillip tried again to kill himself by electrocution in November of 2020. He failed and was housed in 1 Delta—the mental health ward of the only jail in the country to be accredited for their mental health services by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care. Due to the pandemic, his case was stalled.

From jail, Phillip expressed remorse. What sticks out most from that day was the little girl, Troy Perkins daughter at the pump next to him. The thought of hurting other people ripped him apart. At that moment on October 23, 2020, he only wanted to hurt himself but in his delusions, he could not see the people around him. Now, in hindsight, he sees them. On June 12, 2021, he celebrated his 37th birthday in jail.

In May of 2022, he pled guilty to the first two counts, arson and theft, of an eight count indictment. The other six counts were entered as nolle pros. due to the plea agreement He was given 15 years, with the majority to be done on probation. He was released from incarceration on May 7 and began rehabilitation at a halfway home and will participate in the Savannah Chatham Mental Health Court—a judicially supervised, treatment-based program for those individuals with document mental health diagnosis. 

Six months after the incident, in April of 2021, Officer Purnell crossed the stage at the Charles H. Morris Center, smiling behind his mask, dressed in his full patrol uniform. He was handed a purple ribbon with a medal attached to it, the 200 Club’s Tak Argentinis Valor Award.

He was recognized for saving several lives and his own during the incident of Oct. 23. He now displays the award in his house, the most prestigious one he’s received during his years of service in the military and on the police force.

Phillip was part of a group of people who Officer Purnell tries to look out for when he’s out on patrol. He sees every shift as a chance to help, to try and save as many people as he can, to make the right choice.

.