Connecticut ambulance worker arrested in spate of Molotov cocktail attacks



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Two ambulance agencies and a volunteer fire department were targeted.

A Connecticut ambulance company employee has been arrested and charged in a series of statewide Molotov cocktail attacks that have targeted two emergency medical services agencies, a volunteer fire department and a residence the same day, authorities said.

Richard White, 37, of Torrington, Connecticut, was arrested around 10 p.m. on Saturday by Pennsylvania State Police soldiers who stopped his car on Interstate 80 near Milton, Pa. responsible.

An arrest warrant was issued for White on Saturday night, charging him with third degree arson and third degree burglary. He is being held in Pennsylvania on $ 150,000 bail and awaiting extradition to Old Saybrook, Connecticut, Old Saybrook Police Chief Michael A. Spera told ABC News on Sunday.

“This individual has targeted those we rely on to save lives,” Spera said in a statement to ABC News. “Our officers worked diligently throughout the evening to secure both search warrants and arrest warrants in an effort to quickly end these violent attacks on public security and take the suspect into custody . “

It was not immediately clear whether White had retained the services of a lawyer.

No one was injured 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 co-worker told police he was involved in a physical altercation with another employee around 10 a.m. on Saturday following a disciplinary hearing in which he was placed on administrative leave, Mennone said .

He said the police had been called to the ambulance agency, but by the time they arrived, White had fled. Police did not disclose details of why White was punished.

Spera told ABC News that White works as an emergency medical technician.

Shortly after 4 p.m. on Saturday, White resurfaced at the Hunters Ambulance station in Old Saybrook, where he allegedly ignited a Molotov cocktail in an employee’s room and fled in a gray 2004 Ford Taurus, the statement said. by Mennone.

Mennone said at around 5 p.m. a car matching White’s vehicle description was spotted at the Hunters Ambulance agency in Meriden, where the occupant of the car was seen throwing a lit Molotov cocktail at the building and go away.

At a press conference Sunday, Sgt. Paul Makuc, of the Connecticut State Police’s Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit, said the subsequent attacks on the Roxbury Volunteer Fire Department and at a residence about 2 miles from there happened around 6 p.m. Saturday.

Spera told ABC affiliate WTNH-TV in New Haven that the burnt down residence in Roxbury would be White’s childhood home.

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