Links
Archives
Monday, May 30, 2005
|
QUOTATION OF THE DAY: “If half the effort this student put into firebombing the English department went into studying for class, it would never have happened.” Full story appears below: “Police said an arson that scorched Florida Atlantic University’s Boca Raton campus more than two months ago was still unsolved Sunday, even though English professors have a pretty good idea who tossed bricks and gasoline through their office windows. Although FAU police said no arrests had been made since the March 10 arson that closed the Humanities Building, professors said campus gossip implicated a certain freshman so upset over a bad performance in his mandatory English composition class that he flew into a rage when department heads upheld a grade assigned by their teaching assistant. “We have a pretty good idea who would have done it,” professor Thomas Martin said. “Unfortunately, I think the investigation is going to sit on the shelf and go away, unless you get CSI out here to find some micro-fiber or something.” Martin described the arsonist as a “strange, violent nut job of a student” who would eventually land in jail. “It was a cowardly act and probably part of a pattern of bad behavior,” Martin said. “If half the effort this student put into firebombing the English department went into studying for class, it would never have happened.” According to fire marshal investigators, it was around midnight when the arsonist threw bricks through three English department windows located in a corner of the ground floor of the Humanities Building. The arsonist then poured gasoline into the offices, lit one of the rooms on fire and was apparently scared off by the sprinkler system before finishing the job. No one was working in the building at the time, although arson remains a first-degree felony regardless of the reported injuries. Although fire marshal investigators said in April that the prime suspect failed his preliminary lie detector test, they would not say this weekend why university police had not pressed charges. “We’re out of the investigation now and FAU is handling the rest of the case,” said Lt. Rich Schuler of the fire marshal’s office. “They know what they need to do.” Lt. Chuck Aurin of the FAU police said he could not discuss any suspects in the case because the investigation was still open. The three rooms drenched in gasoline were the main office of the Department of English, the office of department chairman Andrew Furman, and the office of writing programs director Dan Murtaugh. The arsonist set off the fire in Murtaugh’s office. Murtaugh, who teaches freshman composition, was vacationing in Bermuda at the time. “We gave police the names of the students we thought could have been responsible, but that obviously wasn’t enough to make an arrest,” Murtaugh said this weekend. “I suspect it’s a matter of hard evidence at this point.” Furman said FAU had relocated the English professors to the third floor of the Social Sciences Building indefinitely. A decision on whether they will return to the old offices is expected before the university’s fall semester. “We hope to stay here for several reasons,” said Furman, whose office window was also smashed a week before the arson. “Personally, I feel a bit safer being off the ground floor.” Although Furman said he was disappointed by comical speculation in the student newspaper about what happened to the Department of English, he said professors had not responded to the rumor mill. “This fire was traumatizing for the department,” Furman said. “We’re still too busy dealing with it ourselves to be able to tell the students how to deal with it.” Martin said Furman and Murtaugh did nothing to provoke the attack on their offices, which he called an anomaly. “Dan and Andy are the nicest guys you’d ever meet,” Martin said. “They’re student-oriented, self-effacing and they don’t have any enemies.” University spokesman Andrew LePlant said this weekend that he had no idea whether an arrest would be made in the arson. “It’s just a wait and see,” he said. Renovations to the Humanities Building, which required new walls and flooring due to water and smoke damaged, have totaled more than $30,000 and were nearly complete as of this weekend. No date has yet been set for reopening the building.” |