Third boy held in fire at school

A third teenage boy was arrested Thursday on suspicion of setting the fire last week that destroyed the Sacajawea Middle School library.

He and two who were arrested Wednesday are Lewis and Clark High School sophomores who attended Sacajawea last year.

Two of them also are suspected in an unsuccessful effort to burn the library in July, and one of them broke into the middle school and vandalized it in June 2005.

The students apparently “had some trouble at school,” Fire Chief Bobby Williams said Thursday. “They didn’t give any reason why, specifically.”

Court documents identify the suspects as Quinten M. Glenn, Harrison M. Seaborn and Cody L. Baker.

Glenn, who will be 16 on Monday, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of attempting to burn the Sacajawea library on July 21.

Deputy Prosecutor Bill Reeves said he didn’t have enough evidence to charge Glenn in last week’s arson when Glenn was arrested Tuesday in the July break-in, but that changed when Seaborn and Baker were arrested.

Glenn had been sent home under house arrest, but was booked back into the county Juvenile Detention Center Thursday. Court Commissioner James Triplet ordered Baker and Seaborn to remain incarcerated until formal charges can be filed.

Glenn faces a hearing today to determine whether he should remain in detention.

Reeves said he plans to charge all three youths with second-degree arson, second-degree burglary and first-degree malicious mischief in last week’s incident.

In addition, Reeves said he planned to charge Glenn and Baker with second-degree burglary, attempted second-degree arson and first-degree malicious mischief in the July break-in.

That attempt at burning the school was thwarted by a Spokane Public Schools security officer who was alerted by an intrusion alarm.

The students allegedly had piled up books and doused them with paint thinner, but fled when they saw school security officer Glenn Bakken looking through a window.

Reeves said Seaborn apparently was out of state, visiting relatives, at the time of the attempted arson in July.

Court records show Seaborn and another boy broke into the school twice in one week in June 2005 and committed vandalism for which Seaborn was ordered to pay $2,006 in restitution.

He was charged with two counts of second-degree burglary and one count of second-degree malicious mischief. However, he accepted a deal in which two counts were dismissed immediately and the remaining burglary count was dismissed after he served 18 hours of community service, paid restitution and satisfactorily completed probation.

On each of the charges Reeves expects to file today or Monday, Seaborn, Baker and Glenn face up to 30 days of detention, 150 hours of community service and a year of probation – all consecutive.

Friday’s gasoline-fueled blaze caused an estimated $300,000 in damage to the library, Williams said. Under state law, the teens’ parents can be held responsible only for $5,000 worth of damage.

Some of the teens told fire officials they threw the gas cans into the Spokane River, Williams said.

Fire Department arson investigators Capt. Michael Zambryski and Lt. Chris Phillips broke the case Tuesday with help from a boy who said he refused an invitation to help burn the school library.

According to court documents, the boy told Zambryski that Glenn and Baker asked him to help them set fire to Sacajawea Middle School in July. Afterward, the boy said Glenn and Baker told him about their unsuccessful attempt.

The boy apparently didn’t report the information until the school library was destroyed in the early morning hours last Friday – four days after the start of the school year.

The blaze forced the closure of school for one day, and a mass cleanup effort that has involved more than 75 people working through last weekend to get the school open by Monday. More than 1,500 man-hours have been spent so far, as the mop-up at the school continues.

ServiceMaster, a fire and water damage specialist, Compass Construction and the school district spent 15 to 16 hours each day last weekend trying to rid the school of the smoky mess.

“It was a unique challenge,” said Karen Altmeyer, the manager for ServiceMaster. “There were a lot of surfaces to clean.”

The school’s ventilation system was on when the fire occurred, sending black smoke through the entire building and leaving a thin coat of soot everywhere.

Crews estimated that over a quarter-million square feet of walls have been cleaned, along with enough desks for 900 students. About 240 window blinds, and the vents and lighting fixtures in 65 classrooms had to be removed and dipped into a sonic wave machine that breaks loose dirt from places unreachable by hand.

The crews started cataloguing items from three offices at the back of the library this week, attempting to salvage what is left. The doors were shut, saving the rooms from the charred mess left by the fire in the main part of the library.

None of the library books can be saved.

Only one picture, given to librarian Dinah Coble from her sister, was saved. A spot remains on the wall where it hung, paint peeled back around it. A few vertical files filled with research were also saved.

One thing Coble hopes to replace is a collection of wooden “Alice in Wonderland” figurines that used to perch on a bookshelf.

“I don’t know if that is going to happen,” said Coble, who has been at Sacajawea for nine years. “They followed me from the last school I was at.”

For now, the librarian is busy dealing with insurance claims, and working to replace many years worth of inventory.

It’s unclear when reconstruction could begin, and crews continue to work to clean up the smoke damage.

Starting next week cleaning crews will head underground, into concrete tunnels that serve as the school’s ventilation system. An 8-foot fan will have to be cleaned.

“We’ll have to crawl inside,” Altmeyer said. The tunnel, still reeking of smoke, will have to be cleaned before the heating system can be restored.

“It’s going to be at least a month,” said Fred Anderson, the general contractor for Compass Construction. His crews were building temporary stairs leading into the tunnels this week so cleaning crews had access. Only a single wall ladder leads to the space now.

Despite the faint odor of acidic smoke still lingering in the hall, just one classroom remains unusable. It appears as everything is back to normal, except maybe to student Baxter Arguinchona. The 13-year-old applied last year to be the librarian’s assistant.

When news of the fire broke, the eighth-grader had one thought: “What am I going to do during my second period now?”

One day this week, he sat at a table, face in his hands, in a room full of teachers. There were no books to sort. “I was a little disappointed,” Arguinchona said.