STANDOFF IN COLLINGDALE
COPS: MAN BURNS DEPUTY WITH MOLOTOV COCKTAIL, HOLDS OFF POLICE BEFORE SURRENDERING
Behind Collingdale Police Chief Bob Adams law enforcement officials destroy unused Molotov cocktails that were found in a residence in the first block of MacDade Boulevard on Wednesday.
COLLINGDALE » A deputy from the Delaware County Sheriff’s Department serving a routine warrant was struck by a Molotov cocktail hurled by a man who then barricaded himself inside his home, armed with a half-dozen other improvised explosive ready to go.
Collingdale Police Chief Bob Adams said the deputy’s partner and members of the Collingdale Police Department rushed to his aid using the “old school stop, drop and roll” technique to extinguish the flames outside the residence at 75 MacDade Blvd. around 5 p.m. Wednesday. The man suffered second-degree burns.
“The one officer kept saying he couldn’t stop smelling this smell that was a combination of gas and clothes and skin burning,” said Adams outside the Collingdale Police Department where the suspect was being held awaiting arraignment Wednesday evening. The suspect’s identity was not immediately released.
Adams said following an hour-long standoff the suspect surrendered, backing slowing into the road with his hands in the air. The Delaware County SWAT team and members of the sheriff’s department took the suspect to the ground and placed him under arrest.
It was during what Adams said was a routine search for additional individuals inside the home that investigators came across an “extreme odor of gasoline coming from the apartment” and “three or four ready to go (explosives), and a few that weren’t capped yet.”
“A cursory search was done to make sure no one else was in the property. In the course of that they found five to seven more of what they believe are Molotov cocktails ready to go, to be lit and thrown,” Adams said.
At the scene following the arrest of the suspect, officers ordered civilians back more than 100 feet in all directors once the incendiary devices were discovered inside.
“On the table or a counter top there were glass jars with gasoline inside them with a lid and an acceleranttype fuse coming from the top,” Adams said. Additionally, he said a weapon was seen as well as unspecified narcotics.
Following a search warrant request to Magisterial District Judge Gregory Loftus, who will arraign the suspect at Collingdale Police Department Thursday morning, members of the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms and the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division Bomb Squad were able to reenter the premises and carefully sample and remove the improvised explosives.
In an adjacent lot to the residence, Collingdale firefighters were at the ready as officials placed and safely burned the unused devices. Once ignited, the flames popped and flowed like liquid across the gravel.
“(At the scene) you have about 30 officers with about 1,000 years experience. Not one of them wanted to go near it,” Adams said.
Delaware County Sheriff Mary McFall Hopper said the deputy was in good spirits despite the second degree burns he suffered to the left leg, upper and inner thigh. He’s being treated at the burn unit at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland.
“It’s his birthday tomorrow,” McFall Hopper said. “I’m sure this isn’t what he was expecting the night before his birthday.”
Without releasing his name, she said the deputy has been with the sheriff’s department for seven years and is a part-time municipal police officer in Delaware County.
“He’s in the warrant unit, he’s a sergeant, a good leader and he’s well trained,” McFall Hopper said. “He is very committed to the job and he does this everyday.”
When asked about the dangers that warrant-service sheriff’s deputies face everyday, McFall Hopper put it bluntly.
“They’re all well equipped, wearing a vest, and when they knock of the door and someone is wanted on a warrant they could do anything,” McFall Hopper said. “They could say, ‘Sure, I’ll come out,’ or they might throw a Molotov cocktail at you.”