Toy Box N. Pleasant Street, Amherst (my childrens favorite store)
Amherst police are investigating back-to-back incidents of arson that occurred in the early morning hours of Sunday (3:28 AM), striking two businesses close to downtown Amherst.
Smoke was coming from the door of The Toy Box on the northern end of town center, possibly from a pizza box used as kindling, and only moments later police responded to the eastern end of town center for reports of two individuals "lighting a table on fire" at The Lumberyard restaurant on Main Street. When police arrived, a wicker table was ablaze. AFD quickly extinguished the fire.
Lumberyard Restaurant (left) Main Street, Amherst
One of the perps is described as "Asian with glasses" and the other was wearing white green sweatshirt.
In late December 2009 a one night, 15 fires arson spree left two individuals -- an elderly father and his mentally disabled son -- dead, and the entire city of Northampton terrorized. Anthony Baye was arrested for arson and murder but his taped confession to State Police investigators was later thrown out by the courts.
9 comments:
Is this enough to finally get your attention? If you have a zero-tolerance crackdown on 20,000 people, if you declare war and become the enemy, someone is going to fight back.
Larry, would you care to speculate as to what would have happened had one of these a**holes had the foresight to bring along a full 5 gallon can of gasoline?
At best, it would AFD using their training and equipment to knock something down a few minutes before it got beyond that point -- but ask a few firefighters how hard it would be for someone who knew what he/she/it was doing (and/or lucky)to cause them some major problems in that firetrap of wooden buildings reconfigured so many times that no one knows of all the hidden spaces inside.
Nobody has declared war on 20,000 students.
I think this was just stupid kids screwing around. But that can be just as dangerous as an actual arsonist intent on doing a lot of harm.
Thankfully it sounds as thought AFD was available, had it been a "normal" weekend night, you may have multiple ambulances committed to drunk students and no firefighters avail.
There's logic at it's worst. Crack down on the morons at UMass who are causing trouble, and they'll start lighting fires around town. Real good logic 1:27 pm. Real smart.
Down, Ed, down.
anon 1:27 are you seriously suggesting that arson is a reasonable response to being asked to behave like adults? Arson??
You're right that it's an attention-getter.
If the students want a war, we'll give it to them.
What a shame, The owners, waitstaff and chef at the Lumberyard are such great and accomodating folks who opened a terrific little restaurant in this town. Why would anyone do such a dangerous and destructive thing? Very sad.
Nobody's advocating war. Let's get a grip here. The crackdown is on badly behaving drunks.
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