Police identified the accused arsonists only as two 14-year-olds and one 13-year-old, all from Oceanside, declining to release their names because of their ages. The boys found papers on the floor inside the former Foodtown, threw them in a plastic garbage pail and set them on fire Nov. 13, according to Detective Sgt. Kevin Power, commanding officer of the Nassau County Arson and Bomb Squad, which investigated the fire after the county fire marshal¹s office deemed the incident an arson on Nov. 17.
³These three kids went to the vacant supermarket to hang out,² Power said, ³and while they were there, they intentionally start a fire inside the building.²
He explained why the boys were charged with fourth-degree arson. ³The fire recklessly grew to a point where it spread throughout the whole building, and eventually caused extensive damage through the neighboring buildings,² Power said. ³They did intentionally start a fire, but it recklessly caused the damage.²
The four-alarm fire in the former Foodtown, which had been vacant since 2000, took over five hours to contain and extinguish, and North Long Beach Road was closed for eight hours, beginning shortly after the fire was called in to the Oceanside Fire Department at 3:33 p.m. that Sunday. More than 200 firefighters from 16 departments battled the intense blaze, and two of them suffered minor knee injuries. The fire caused an estimated $5 million in damage, police said.
Confirming what chiefs from the Oceanside F.D. initially suspected, Gene Pietzak, an investigator from the fire marshal¹s office, said the blaze began in the northeast section of the building, near where the Foodtown once housed its recycling facility. ³Once the flames got up in the ceiling area, and with the winds whipping, it really started to spread,² Pietzak said. ³These three boys are lucky that with the smoke, heat and fire, they didn¹t get disoriented in there and were able to find an exit and got out.²
Powers said police officers knocked on doors and interviewed neighbors to find the three suspects.
Neighbors of the vacant supermarket as well as the Town of Hempstead, the municipality responsible for code enforcement at the building and for boarding it up, said that kids would break into the vacant supermarket to hang out or ride skateboards inside, which was virtually all wide-open space. ³There is indication that these three boys were very familiar with the area,² Power said. ³The fact that they themselves had been in there before, I don¹t have information on that. But it¹s a known place in that area where kids go and congregate, within that parking lot, to skateboard and the like.²
Following their release to their parents¹ custody after their arrests, the teens were ordered to appear in Family Court at a later date, police said.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
