Police are back at the scene today of a raid that turned into a fire in Rotterdam.
When U.S. Marshals and Rotterdam Police could not break down the door on Wagner Street yesterday, they threw in a "flash-bang" to smoke out the people inside.
The trouble was, the device landed on a couch and it caught fire. Before they could control the fire, it quickly spread, destroying the house.
But police got their man, 38-year-old Michael Higgins, wanted on a parole violation from Connecticut.
"They failed to comply with the orders of the officers, ran around inside the house, so the fire took off pretty quick," says Lt. Jason Murphy, with the Rotterdam Police Department. "It took us a little while for the fire department to come and put out the fire."
"The fire trucks started to arrive and people were screaming...the neighbors came out," neighbor Dimitri Koutsopoulos says, who witnessed the raid. "So, eventually they put the fire out, it was coming out the windows and stuff."
The raid caps a nine-month investigation. Police say they had information that Higgins might be leaving the state.
This afternoon, he is in the Schenectady County Jail.
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