Two ambulance agencies and a volunteer fire department were targeted.
A Connecticut ambulance company employee was arrested and charged in a series of statewide Molotov cocktail attacks that targeted two emergency medical service agencies, a volunteer fire department and a private residence on the same day, officials said. .
Richard White, 37, of Torrington, Connecticut, was arrested at about 10 pm on Saturday by Pennsylvania State Police soldiers who stopped his car on Interstate 80 near Milton, Pennsylvania, officials said.
An arrest warrant was issued for White on Saturday night, accusing him of third-degree arson and third-degree theft. He is being held in Pennsylvania on $ 150,000 bail and awaits extradition back to Old Saybrook, Connecticut, Old Saybrook police chief Michael A. Spera told ABC News on Sunday.
“This individual targets those we rely on to save lives,” Spera said in a statement to ABC News. “Our officers worked diligently all night getting search and arrest warrants in an effort to quickly stop these violent attacks on public security and get the suspect into custody.”
It was not immediately clear whether White hired a lawyer.
No one was hurt in the attacks, Spera said.
White is an employee of the Hunters Ambulance agency in Meriden, Connecticut, according to a statement from Captain John Mennone of the Meriden Police Department.
White’s colleague told police he was involved in a physical fight with another employee at about 10 am on Saturday after a disciplinary hearing in which he was placed on administrative leave, Mennone said.
He said the police were called to the ambulance agency, but when they arrived, White had run away. Police have not released details of the reason for White’s punishment.
Spera told ABC News that White works as an emergency medical technician.
Shortly after 4 pm on Saturday, White reappeared at the Hunters Ambulance station in Old Saybrook, where he reportedly lit a Molotov cocktail inside a staff room and escaped in a gray 2004 Ford Taurus, according to Mennone’s statement.
Mennone said that around 5 pm, a car that matched White’s vehicle description was located at the Hunters Ambulance agency in Meriden, where the car’s occupant was seen throwing a Molotov cocktail lit in the building and leaving at high speed.
During a press conference on Sunday, the sergeant. Paul Makuc, of the Connecticut State Police Explosion and Fire Investigation Unit, said the consecutive attacks on the Roxbury Voluntary Fire Department and a residence about 2 miles away occurred around 6 pm on Saturday.
Spera told ABC’s WTNH-TV affiliate station in New Haven that the burned-out Roxbury residence is believed to be White’s childhood home.