Since the Pulse nightclub massacre in June it has been revealed that Omar Mateen, the shooter who took the lives of 49 people and wounded more than 50, had attended this St. Lucie County mosque.
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The Islamic Center of Fort Pierce, located at 1104 West Midway Rd., has attracted national attention over recent months for some of its past members.
Forty-nine people were killed and another 53 injured on June 12 when Mateen, a 29-year-old USA citizen, opened fire on the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando.
This isn’t the first time the mosque has had to deal with hatred since Mateen’s death.
“Video captured at the Fort Pierce Islamic Center shows an individual approached the east side of the building just moments before a flash is seen and the fire starts”, the statement continued.
The Muslim Friends of Florida Islamic Center, also in Fort Pierce, opened its doors this morning to people who couldn’t worship at their regular mosque because of the fire. Mateen, who lived in Fort Pierce, perpetrated the deadliest mass shooting in modern USA history in June.
“So far as we here in Fort Pierce are concerned, we are always very conscious – consciously speaking about peace, about love, about unity”, Rahman told CNN in a previous interview.
Mateen had attended the Fort Pierce Islamic Center since 2003, according to CNN.
Eid al Adha means “Festival of Sacrifice”.
The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the investigation into the fire.
Surveillance video showed a white man riding up on a Harley Davidson-style motorcycle, Thompson said.
The Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday, was being celebrated on Monday and also could have prompted the attack, Thompson said.
“Certainly I feel that is probably the case, ” he said.
He then started a fire near the center of the complex, potentially by using a bottle of fluid he carried with him, causing “substantial damage to the mosque – both the interior and the exterior”, Thompson said.
In addition, Monday marks exactly three months since the massacre at the discotheque, the largest mass shooting in USA history.
The building was unoccupied at the time of the fire.
“For any group of people to be attacked and persecuted, is wrong”, she said.
One of the attendees at the mosque told CNN that the Fort Pierce Islamic Center was “like any other mosque”.
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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Sunday was the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
