LINCOLN — Moments before he set himself on fire after crashing his car into the front of Lincoln High School Oct. 3, troubled teacher’s assistant Jay D. Paul, drenched in gasoline, lamented to co-workers, “I can’t believe he fired me,” according to witness statements the police released yesterday.

Pamela Falcone, a teacher at the school who had worked with Paul, 34, told the police how she’d run to Paul’s car after it hit the building at around 2:40 p.m. after classes had been dismissed. She said she got to the wrecked vehicle, pulled the deflated air bags away from the driver and recognized the teacher’s assistant, whom she’d worked with in her class.

“ … He was slumped over the passenger’s seat and I was telling him to get up and I would help him,” she told the police in a statement given hours after the crash. “I was talking to him and Jay said to me, ‘I can’t believe he fired me.’ ”

School officials could not be reached for comment.

Falcone said Paul had a gasoline can in the car and was moving it around himself. He refused to leave the car, she said, and he began moving his hands toward the passenger side of the car. She said she then heard a clicking sound.

“At this point I knew Jay wanted to light the car on fire,” Falcone’s statement said. “I ran from the car and I could still hear Jay making that clicking sound with what he had in his hands. I tried to go back and see if I could get Jay out but the car went up in flames. I was stopped by other[s] who came to help.”

“He was a sub in my class and I knew he had a lot of problems,” she told the police. She said she didn’t know he’d been fired.

Statements from two other school employees, Rose Reopell and Rachel Kay, coincided with Falcone’s. Reopell got to the car and said she heard Paul say, “They fired me today” and saw a red gasoline can in the passenger seat next to him.

“While Jay was leaning over the seat, I could see Jay moving his hands near the floor of the passenger’s side of the car,” Reopell said in her statement, “and then I noticed a flicker of flame where Jay was hunched over and where Jay was reaching.”

Kay told the police that Paul had been fired earlier in the day but did not say why. She said Paul “had a lot of mental issues.” She said school employees were told not to let him in the building and to call the police if he came to the school.

Town Solicitor Anthony DeSisto released the three witness statements yesterday, along with narratives from two policemen, Patrolman Kevin J. Murphy, the first policeman on the scene, and Detective Kevin J. Harty.

DeSisto said he withheld some of the information gathered in the investigation. He cited a provision of the state’s open records law that exempts records that might reveal “medical or psychological facts” and another that refers to “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”

DeSisto said he was concerned for the privacy of people who were interviewed by the police and for others who were mentioned in witness statements but not interviewed. He said he was also concerned about Paul’s medical confidentiality and privacy rights, even though he was dead.

The witnesses’ statements to the police jibe with accounts provided by students at the scene on the day of the crash. Some said they had seen Paul talking with Principal Kevin McNamara and Assistant Principal Charlotte Tavares, and it looked like he was being reprimanded.

Paul grew up in the Limerock section of Lincoln and attended the town’s schools, where he consistently made the honor roll. As an adult, he was remembered as solitary person. An across-the-street neighbor of Paul’s said he always wore a black overcoat, black hat and black gloves, even in summer.

jhill@projo.com