By Tien-Shun Lee
A homeless man who was arrested after breaking into Thomas Edison High School Friday is believed to be the same person who broke into St. Francis Preparatory High School on Oct. 20 and set fire to the school’s kitchen, police said.
The blaze at the Fresh Meadows parochial school endangered the lives of a dozen clergy who live on the third floor of the school and caused extensive damage, police said.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said James Parks, 32, who has no address, has been charged with burglary, arson, reckless endangerment, possession of burglar’s tools and criminal mischief. He was linked from one crime scene to the other through fingerprints, said police.
Parks faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted.
He was arrested at 3:45 a.m. after climbing out of a broken, first-floor window at the back of Thomas Edison High School, at 165-65 84th Ave. in Jamaica, said police.
He was apparently trapped inside a small, locked, hallway area at the bottom of a staircase for a short time after setting off an alarm at the police station by breaking the window, said Robert Broncatello, the assistant for security at Thomas Edison High School.
“The window is about eight or nine feet above ground, and he couldn’t find anything to stand on to get back out,” said Broncatello. “He didn’t pick the best window to break apparently.”
Classes at Thomas Edison were held Friday without disruption, and the school had not made any plans to tell the students about the break-in, said Broncatello.
“It was a remote stairwell that’s not utilized that the kids do not go to, so the kids would be unaware of it,” said Broncatello.
Classes at St. Francis Prep., which is located at 61-00 Francis Lewis Blvd. in Fresh Meadows, were canceled for four days after the fire.
“The students were very upset and felt like they were violated,” said Brother Leonard Conway, the principal of St. Francis Prep. “They can’t understand why someone would want to do that to their school.”
Officials from St. Francis Prep estimate that repairs and clean-up costs for the fire, which was mostly contained within the cafeteria manager’s office, will run between $500,000 and $750,000.
“The ceiling has to be replaced and engineers are coming to make sure there was no structural damage from the heat,” said Conway.
Conway praised the police and Fire Department for doing a thorough job, which led to the capture of the suspect. Images from the school’s security cameras were helpful in the investigation, he said.
“The prints and the blowups they did gave them a way to look at the way that he walked and his posture, and they were able to match that,” said Conway.
Police said Parks was apprehended at Thomas Edison High School with a screwdriver and a pair of goggles in his backpack. In addition, he had in his possession keys to a vending machine at St. Francis Prep, said police.
Reach reporter Tien-Shun Lee by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com, or call 229-0300, Ext. 155
