Davenport Man Sentenced to 15 Years Imprisonment for Attempted Arson
Davenport, IA- On March 3, 2008, John Scott Garrow, age 44, of Davenport, was sentenced to 180 months imprisonment, having previously pleaded guilty to attempted arson, announced United States Attorney Matthew G. Whitaker. United States District Judge John A. Jarvey also ordered Garrow to serve three years on supervised release following imprisonment and to pay an assessment of $100 to the Crime Victim Fund.
Garrow lived at 611 Perry Street, Davenport, a multi-unit apartment building. During the evening of February 27, 2006, Garrow, after one or more confrontations with police earlier in the day, pulled the stove in his apartment away from the wall and punctured the natural gas line leading the back of stove, thereby releasing natural gas at a high flow rate. As the gas permeated the atmosphere in Garrow's apartment, it also flowed into other sections of the building.
In an effort to booby-trap his apartment for responding police and firefighters, Garrow stripped the ends of electrical cords, placing the bare ends of the wires on the backs of the interior, metal door knobs for both the rear and front doors entering into Garrow's apartment from outside. Garrow connected the wires together in a circuit and plugged the wires into an electrical outlet, thereby charging the wires with electricity.
After other residents of 611 Perry called the police to report escaping natural gas, Garrow left the building. While exiting, Garrow stated to other residents, by now congregating in the hallway, that when police and firefighters entered the apartment they would be blown up. When police and firefighters arrived, they safely forced their way into Garrow's apartment, ventilated it, and turned off the gas.
According to federal arson experts, by the time the police and firefighters arrived the amount of gas in the apartment was sufficient to create an explosive gas-oxygen mixture. Moreover, other parts of the building were in a potentially explosive state, and not only could the extension cord arrangement have ignited an explosion that would have destroyed the building, but a spark from any random source, such as an electrical appliance or light switch, in Garrow’s apartment or elsewhere in the building, could have also ignited such a destructive explosion.
This case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa and investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Davenport Police Department, and the Davenport Fire Department.