Arson investigation begins after Orlando shooter's mosque set ablaze

The mosque where Omar Mateen was an occasional attendee suffered a fire late Sunday night. Authorities from multiple agencies are now investigating the possibility of an arson attack. 

|
St. Lucie Sheriff's Office/AP
In this photo provided by the St. Lucie Sheriff's Office, firefighters work at the scene of a fire at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce on Monday, in Fort Pierce, Fla.

The mosque attended by Omar Mateen, who fatally shot 49 people at an Orlando nightclub in June, was set ablaze in what may have been an arson attack, officials said Monday morning. 

Authorities were alerted to the fire at the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce in the early hours of Monday morning, and a multitude of state and federal agencies are now investigating, after surveillance video emerged of someone approaching the building moments before a flash is seen and the flames begin.

Mr. Mateen was an occasional visitor at the mosque, including a visit to pray with his son two days before he opened fire at the Pulse nightclub, according to The Washington Post. Mateen was killed by police during the ensuing shootout. 

The Pulse shooting was the worst terror attack on US soil since Sept. 11, 2001. 

I don’t want to speculate on a motive,” Maj. David Thompson of St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office told reporters in a video posted to Facebook. “We all know the implications of the date and the time of year that this is – the 9/11 anniversary. Is that related? I would not want to speculate, but certainly that is in the back of our minds.”

The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office has requested assistance from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as local and state firefighters.

Ever since the attack at Pulse nightclub, which also wounded 53 people, the Orlando, Fla., area has been coming to terms with the events of that June night. Yet there have been remarkable examples of the community coming together in the aftermath, in defiance of the adage that the state is not “so much a community as a crowd” – particularly in Orlando itself, where roughly two-thirds of residents are originally from out of state. 

Not least among the financial gestures has been the actions of two local hospitals – Orlando Health, and Florida Hospital – in forgiving more than $5 million in medical expenses incurred by victims of the attack. And an online GoFundMe campaign to support the victims hit $1 million faster than any other campaign in the site’s history.

The possibility of arson may fuel worry about anti-Islamic rhetoric, however. "Unfortunately, within the past year, we've seen an unprecedented rise in bigotry in our society," Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told The Washington Post, noting an increase in attacks against Muslim Americans. 

"It is with a very heavy heart that we have to announce the last night around midnight, there was an arson attack on our Mosque...Please keep us in your Du'as and prayers," the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce said in a post on Facebook on Monday morning. 

This report includes material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Arson investigation begins after Orlando shooter's mosque set ablaze
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0912/Arson-investigation-begins-after-Orlando-shooter-s-mosque-set-ablaze
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe