ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – Federal authorities charged a man on Monday with using an explosive device to damage an Old Navy store in Albuquerque, where a string of overnight fires and vandalism during the busiest shopping weekend of the year damaged Starbucks shops, a Barnes & Noble, and other establishments in New Mexico’s largest city.
Albuquerque police arrested David A. Hickman, 28, early Saturday morning after he drove away from the Albuquerque shopping center where an officer who was on patrol said he had heard “small explosions,” according to a federal criminal complaint. Hickman was transferred to the custody of federal authorities who are investigating other local arson and vandalism cases since early Wednesday.
Hickman has not been linked in federal documents to the other suspicious fires in Albuquerque, although Albuquerque Police Chief Gorden Eden had said during a news conference over the weekend that the spate of crimes targeting businesses would end with an arrest that came the day Hickman was taken into custody.
Federal authorities, meanwhile, have not confirmed which, if any, of the cases are related.
It was not known whether Hickman had obtained a lawyer Monday.