A man is in custody after authorities say he set fire to the steps of a federal building in Manhattan that houses an immigration court, in an attack captured on dramatic video. Investigators say the man poured gasoline on the steps and set it alight before officers rushed in and wrestled him to the ground, ending the confrontation within moments of it beginning.
Authorities identified the suspect as 43-year-old Andrew Arrabaca. According to the FBI, after igniting the gasoline he pulled out a pellet gun and fired it outside the building. Officers moved in quickly, tackling him to the ground at the scene and taking him into custody, where he has remained since the arrest.
The FBI said Arrabaca is a former U.S. Army soldier, and an FBI official described him as an anti-government extremist. That characterization pointed investigators toward a deliberate act rather than a random disturbance, and framed the way authorities described both the attack itself and their handling of the suspect afterward.
Investigators say the suspect made his hostility plain. He was shouting anti-ICE statements during the confrontation and was carrying a sign that read "ICE off our streets," authorities said. The building he targeted houses an immigration court, tying the assault to the immigration enforcement that the sign he carried referenced.
Officials said the violence left three people injured. The fire and the pellet gun were directed at an entrance to the building, the kind of doorway used by members of the public and staff coming and going from a courthouse, turning an ordinary point of access into the center of a sudden and dangerous attack.
In a post-arrest interview, which authorities say Arrabaca agreed to, he acknowledged that he had been targeting the building. He also said he was willing to hurt or kill people going in and out of it, whether they were federal employees or civilians, according to officials, a statement that underscored just how dangerous the assault had been.
As of the latest report, no charges had been announced against Arrabaca, who remained in custody. Authorities had not laid out the specific counts he could face, and the account of what happened was still being drawn from the scene, the video of the attack and the suspect's own statements to investigators.