Police: No connection between Fayetteville bar fight, fire

Fayetteville police say they have no evidence that a fight at Maverick's Saloon last weekend is linked to the fire at the bar Wednesday morning.

Posted 3:03 a.m. Sep 11, 2015 — Updated 10:42 p.m. Sep 11, 2015

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Fayetteville police say they have no evidence that a fight at Maverick's Saloon last weekend is linked to the fire at the bar Wednesday morning. The connection has been a point of speculation since firefighters were called to the Raeford Road club.

"Not at this point," said Lt. David McLaurin of the Fayetteville Police Department. "We can't find a correlation with the evidence we have right now."

Aufaga Tiumalu, 29, a Maverick's employee, had little to say in court Friday when he was arraigned on an assault charge for the Sept. 3 fight.

{{a href="external_link-1"}}In a post to Facebook, New Jersey resident Giovanni Ignazio Facebook{{/a}} claimed Tiumalu knocked out his brother's tooth and left him bloody.

District Court Judge Lou Olivera ordered Tiumalu to stay away from the soldier he's accused of assaulting and released him on $10,000 unsecured bond.

McLaurin said the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had completed gathering evidence in the fire and that the agencies were working together to determine its cause.

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