Kensington Man Charged in Area Fires

School Dumpsters, Vehicles Set Ablaze

Montgomery County arson investigators have charged a Kensington man with setting a string of fires in Silver Spring and Kensington, including torching dumpsters at two elementary schools and an unoccupied portable classroom at one of the schools.

Preston Colin Crocker, 21, of the 3200 block of Fayette Road was arrested Monday on 11 charges, including second-degree arson to a structure and seven counts of arson to vehicles, most parked in front of homes.

The structure fire involved the portable music classroom at Woodlin Elementary School in Silver Spring, according to charging documents. A wooden walkway and a dumpster at Woodlin Elementary also burned Sept. 8, and a dumpster at Oakland Terrace Elementary School on Plyers Mill Road in Silver Spring was set ablaze four days earlier, authorities said.

No one was injured in any of the nearly dozen fires set since Aug. 26, but investigators said they were concerned that the person setting them might escalate to occupied buildings. Residents, particularly in the area where the fires were clustered within a mile of each other, also needed relief, officials said.

"There certainly has been significant concern and fear in the community," said Montgomery Fire Chief Thomas W. Carr Jr.

Crocker was being held yesterday in the Montgomery County jail in lieu of $750,000 bail. His mother, Judith Nielsen, said her son is "disturbed" and needs treatment. She said she had tried for years to get him help for the severe depression and borderline personality disorder that she said caused him to attempt suicide and cut and burn his arms.

Nielsen said she exhausted her $200,000 in personal savings two years ago after five years of having her son treated by a dozen therapists and hospitalized numerous times. After that, she said, health insurance companies didn't cover the inpatient treatment he needed, and his arrest history on relatively minor charges didn't catch the attention of the criminal justice system.

"We discovered that without funds and resources, there's no help," Nielsen said.

She said her son is a "brilliant" pianist who played Rachmaninoff and Chopin for fellow patients last week while being held for psychiatric observation at Suburban Hospital. She said fire investigators took her son to Suburban on an emergency petition Sept. 9 after he talked about wanting to hurt himself. He was arrested Monday after being released from Suburban.

Investigators said they spotted Crocker on Sept. 8 walking a few blocks from Woodlin Elementary, at 2101 Luzerne Ave., shortly after the school's fire alarms sounded about 11:30 p.m. Crocker matched a description of a suspect seen four days earlier near a vehicle fire in Kensington, authorities said.

During an interview with investigators where Crocker had been stopped, Crocker was "inconsistent and evasive" about his recent whereabouts, according to charging documents.

Sarah Sirgo, principal of Woodlin Elementary, declined to comment on the arrest but said she expected the portable classroom to be replaced this week.

Steve Simon, a spokesman for Montgomery public schools, said he hadn't heard why schools might have been targeted. Police had stepped up patrols around some schools since the fires started, he said.

"There certainly is relief to know a suspect is in custody," Simon said.