The Associated Press
NEW YORK — A drunken man set fire to his apartment by tossing a lighted toilet paper roll soaked in paint thinner into a baby carriage near the front door, touching off a blaze that engulfed the building and killed five people, police said.
Daniel Ignacio, 27, was arrested Tuesday on charges of second-degree murder and arson, said chief police spokesman Paul Browne. Ignacio managed to escape the flames that overtook the three-story apartment on a busy commercial strip in Brooklyn. He was being held pending arraignment and his lawyer’s name was not yet on record. Police had been investigating several motives, but it doesn’t appear Ignacio meant to burn down the building, though he intentionally set the blaze.
The fire early Saturday was the city’s deadliest since a 2007 fire killed 10 people in the Bronx. Four men and a woman, all Guatemalan immigrants, died in the Brooklyn blaze.
Ignacio told investigators, according to police, that he was drunk and doused the toilet paper roll in paint thinner before lighting it. He tossed it in the carriage and then went upstairs to bed as flames erupted near the front door of the three-story building, which housed a Japanese restaurant on its ground floor and apartments upstairs.
Flames quickly engulfed the building, consuming the restaurant and two apartments on the upper floors. The stairwell between the floors collapsed, as well as part of the roof, trapping residents.
Luisa Chan, the only victim identified by police so far, and her husband, Miguel, who escaped, tried to lower their 2-month-old daughter, Maria, out of a window in a car seat, but the baby fell out and suffered a fractured skull. She remained in critical condition but was expected to survive.
The medical examiner was determining the identification of the other victims. Their residency status was unclear.
As many as 20 people lived in the building, which did not have adequate smoke detectors, officials said.
Fire investigators noticed the blaze was suspicious after realizing it started near the front door, where there aren’t usually power strips or other hazards.