The Florida mosque where Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen worshipped was targeted in an arson attack early, authorities said Monday, without ruling out the possibility of a hate crime.
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The sheriff’s office said on its official Facebook page that surveillance video shows someone approaching the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce around 12:30 a.m. Monday, moments before a flash was seen and the fire started. David Thompson told reporters “evidence has revealed that this fire was set intentionally” but that he doesn’t “want to speculate on a motive”.
There have been no reports of injuries and the extent of damage to the building is now being determined.
The sheriff’s office shared a video online that showed a “lone individual either of white or Hispanic ancestry” disembark from a “Harley Davidson-style motorcycle” and enter the mosque complex made up of several buildings, some of them wooden, just before midnight.
“Immediately after the individual approached, a flash occurred and the individual fled the area”, he said.
Mateen killed 49 people when he opened fire inside an Orlando gay nightclub in June.
They do say they plan to start using the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce as a place of worship again as soon as they are able.
It urged the faithful to attend another mosque in the city to participate in prayers on Eid ul-Adha, a Muslim holiday marking the end of the annual Hajj pilgrimage.
The suspect is then seen running from the building. It took about 4 1/2 hours for firefighters to extinguish the blaze.
The fire caused substantial damage, burning a 10 foot hole in the roof of the mosque. In June, The Washington Post reported that Mateen occasionally attended the mosque.
“There is nothing that he is hearing from me to do killing, to do bloodshed, to do anything, because we never talk like that”, the imam said of Mateen.
The Latest on the fire at the Florida mosque that was attended by the Orlando nightclub shooting gunman.
Local authorities have said they will make the video public so that anyone with information about the person or the crime may identify the perpetrator.
Thompson said he had also requested assistance from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and the FBI.
The arsonist “is terrorizing our community because we don’t know where he is at and we don’t know what he is capable of doing”, said Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, Florida spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations who was representing the mosque’s leadership.
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Parsons said that since the Orlando massacre, she has heard people in passing cars yell out threats. In July, a member of the congregation was physically assaulted outside the mosque.
