A drunk commodities trader set fire to an elevator in 7 World Trade Center after he became trapped in it in the early hours of Sat., Jan. 24.
Ryan Brinkerhoff, 24, decided to visit his office with DRW Commodities on the 34th floor of 7 W.T.C. at the end of a long night of partying, according to press reports. After some confusion over which floor he wanted the elevator to bring him to, he stumbled into a freight elevator that would not let him out without a fingerprint authorization. Brinkerhoff found cleaning spray in the elevator and used his lighter to set it on fire, which returned the elevator the ground floor, where police met him.
Brinkerhoff did not appear chastened after being arrested and charged with four counts of arson.
According to reports, he grinned as he was being led from the First Precinct, and when reporters asked why he did it, he replied, “Do what? I don’t know what you are taking about.”
Brinkerhoff is from Kansas City, Mo. and transferred from his company’s Chicago office several months ago.
“It’s such a sensitive building,” Leon Borstein, Brinkerhoff’s lawyer, said of 7 W.T.C., “but it’s much more sensitive to us New Yorkers than someone who recently transferred. He was a young kid. He was drinking. You put it all together and you can see what he did was probably relatively reasonable under the circumstances where he couldn’t get out of the elevator.”
Borstein expects to reach a settlement with prosecutors before Brinkerhoff’s next court date April 22.
Silverstein Properties, owner of 7 W.T.C., did not return calls for comment.
The original 7 W.T.C. collapsed on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001 after stored diesel in the building helped spread a fire started by falling debris from the Twin Towers.
— Julie Shapiro
