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Queens man accused of setting fire that killed 4, including child, at violation-plagued apartment building.<\/p>\n
A Queens sicko was arrested Tuesday after he allegedly waltzed into an apartment he had no connection to last month and started a vicious inferno that killed four<\/a> people, including a 3-year-old girl.<\/p>\n Roman Amatitla, 38, was nabbed by members of the US Marshals Fugitive Task Force at his Queens home on Tuesday for the deadly fire that appeared to be a totally random attack, according to police and sources.<\/p>\n Roman Amatitla, 38, was charged in connection with a fire he allegedly set at a Queens apartment building in March. Kevin C Downs for NY Post<\/p>\n Amatitla has no prior arrests and didn\u2019t appear to know any of the residents \u2014 including the four dead and five injured \u2014 at the Flushing apartment building he allegedly set aflame on March 16, the sources said.<\/p>\n The alleged firebug lit a piece of wood on fire inside the building and fueled it with an accelerant, sparking a fast-growing blaze that engulfed the complex, the sources added.<\/p>\n It took more than two hours for 74 responding FDNY units to get the inferno under control.<\/p>\n Four people were killed in the fire. FDNY<\/p>\n Amatitla was seen on video stealing a can of beer from a store the same day, but it\u2019s not immediately clear if the footage was captured before or after the fire was set, sources said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also not clear if he stayed at the scene to watch the deadly flames engulf the building or if he fled elsewhere.<\/p>\n Police have not identified a motive.<\/p>\n The youngest victim was 3 years old. Citizen<\/p>\n The relentless blaze tore through the three-story apartment building in the middle of the day.<\/p>\n One horrified resident told The Post that they were \u201cpraying so hard that everyone got out safe,\u201d specifically when they watched paramedics wheel out an unconscious victim with wounds they speculated he \u201ccan\u2019t have survived.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you see a fire that bad, you know you\u2019re looking at death,\u201d the resident said.<\/p>\n Two of the victims were identified as 3-year-old Sihan Yang and 50-year-old Chengri Cui. The remaining victims, a 61-year-old and a 63-year-old, have not been publicly identified, pending family notification.<\/p>\n It took more than two hours for firefighters to control the blaze. Citizen<\/p>\n Amatitla was slapped with eight counts of murder, 12 counts of assault, eight counts of arson and four counts of petit larceny, according to the NYPD.<\/p>\n The building, which was hardly standing after suffering \u201cheavy, heavy damage\u201d from the blaze, had racked up nearly five dozen violations<\/a> over the last three decades.<\/p>\n![\"Roman](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/8457c03f81889e5f98c7abeefcc5f237.jpeg\"\/)
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