Man charged with causing fireball at apartment
A 31-year-old man who told police he wanted to show his ex-girlfriend he wasn’t “a sucker” has been charged with causing a fireball in the hallway outside her second-floor apartment, endangering dozens of people, including two police officers investigating an earlier, smaller fire he set.
Timothy Jenkins faces counts of arson, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, burglary and five counts of recklessly endangering safety in the Sunday night blaze at Windsor Apartments, near N. 18th St. and W. Highland Ave.
According to the criminal complaint: A 27-year-old woman told police that Jenkins, whom she had broken up with about a week earlier, came to her door about 2 a.m. and knocked for 20 minutes, apologizing and asking to enter.
Shortly after he stopped, she heard a fire alarm and saw that the mat outside her door was on fire. She stomped it out and called 911.
Another woman and two children also were at the apartment.
Dozens of other residents were evacuated from the 20-unit, three-story building.
Firefighters and officers responded. While two officers were in the woman’s apartment, shortly after 3 a.m., surveillance video showed Jenkins returned to the building, spilled gasoline up and down the hallway outside the woman’s apartment and ignited it.
A fireball raced down the entire hallway, the only exit for numerous second-floor apartments.
Smoke and flames shot under the woman’s door.
The officers moved the occupants to the far corner of the apartment and had them get on the floor because of smoke.
One officer burned her hand on the door trying to exit and help other residents.
Eventually, firefighters rescued the officers, the occupants of the woman’s apartment and other people on the second floor and evacuated others.
When a detective first interviewed Jenkins, he denied being at the apartment or setting the fires, then admitted he had done so because he was upset with his former girlfriend, and that he knew the building was occupied when he set the fires.
Jenkins was being held at the County Jail Friday afternoon.