The owner of a vacant apartment building on Ridgeway Avenue in Rochester has been charged with first degree arson after police served a search warrant at his home in Webster Tuesday night.
Lt. Dana Cielinski of the Rochester Fire Department says police and arson investigators seized a cache of evidence at the home of 52-year-old Eric Reynolds. The evidence found at 64 Kircher Avenue in Webster is related to Monday night’s discovery of an improvised incendiary device inside 401 Ridgeway Avenue near the corner of Ridgeway and Dewey.
The Arson Task Force has been working with Monroe County, state and federal authorities including the ATF and FBI to get to the bottom of Monday night’s incident. A passerby reported smelling gasoline around the apartment building, which had been vacated earlier this year by order of the city for numerous code violations. It’s also under foreclosure by a bank.
Firefighters who went in found suspicious objects and called in the bomb squad. Bomb Squad officers using a robot removed a drum of gasoline and other items from the building.
Sources have said these items included wires and blasting caps.