An Oyster Bay man was arrested for setting fire to a garbage can at his college campus in Old Westbury on Thursday night, Nassau police said.
Michael A. Pineda, 20, was inside the Education Hall at the New York Institute of Technology on Wheatley Road when he set a fire inside a rubber garbage can in a stairwell that burned for approximately two hours before it went out on its own at 11:50 p.m., according to Arson/Bomb Squad detectives.
There were numerous people in the building at the time but no injuries, police said. The school’s security staff contacted police after an investigation led them to Pineda and Nassau police arrested him along with Old Westbury police.
Pineda, a four-year architecture student who was in good standing, was suspended from campus, according to Jacky Nealon, vice president for enrollment, communications and marketing at the college.
Pineda was charged with reckless endangerment and arson. He will be arraigned at First District Court in Hempstead on Thursday.