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A Florida man who investigators say made anti-Islamic postings on social media was arrested Wednesday for setting fire to the mosque where Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen had worshiped, police said.
Major David Thompson from the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Department told reporters Wednesday evening that local authorities, working with the FBI, had arrested Joseph Michael Schreiber, 32, in the late-night attack on the Fort Pierce Islamic Center, which was captured on surveillance video. Schreiber is a Fort Pierce resident and lives within a few miles of the mosque that he allegedly set fire to.
Schreiber, who is “known to law enforcement” for what records indicate are multiple thefts, is charged with arson, a first degree felony, because of the penalty enhancement of a hate crime, Thompson told reporters during a news conference on Wednesday evening. Florida does not have a specific hate crime charge. But Schreiber’s online postings against Islam “corroborates our fear that this does have to do with hate to the Islamic community,” he said.
He was booked Wednesday at the St. Lucie County Jail without bond. Thompson said law enforcement officials received the crucial tip that led them to Schreiber on Tuesday night. “He is currently here in our criminal investigations division, being questioned as we speak,” he said.
The St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said emergency crews responded to the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce shortly after midnight on Sept. 12 and extinguished the flames, which were shooting several feet into the air.
Surveillance video released to the public shows the arson suspect, with a bottle of liquid and what appears to be paper, touching off the blaze just after midnight on one of the holiest Muslim holidays, Eid al-Adha.
Department officials said tips from members of the community and surveillance videos from the mosque and nearby homes and businesses helped them match Schreiber to an individual seen riding a motorcycle in the vicinity around the time of the attack.
Sheriff’s Department officials, who spoke alongside FBI agents on Wednesday evening, told reporters that a massive, collaborative effort between law enforcement agencies had helped them nab a suspect within 65 hours of the attack.
“Though a suspect is in custody, the investigation continues,” FBI Assistant Special Agent Michael D’Alonco told reporters.
The mosque has reported receiving multiple threats of violence and intimidation after reports that Mateen, who committed the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, sometimes attended. A few weeks after the June massacre, a line of motorcycles circled the center, their riders shouting at members. In July, a man was charged with battery after allegedly beating a Muslim man in the parking lot as he left dawn prayer.
Thompson told reporters Monday morning that the fire was a “horrible tragedy, not only for the Islamic center but for our community.”
“I don’t want to speculate on a motive,” he said. “We all know the implications of the date and the time of year that this is – the 9/11 anniversary. Is that related? I wouldn’t want to speculate, but certainly that is in the back of our minds.”
The fire caused extensive damage to the interior and exterior of the mosque. No one was injured.
Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said attacks against the American Muslim community are becoming a daily occurrence.
“Unfortunately, within the past year, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in bigotry in our society,” he said Monday. “It’s becoming a great concern to the American Muslim community.”
A Washington Post reporter who visited the mosque in June following the Orlando shooting witnessed passing drivers shout anti-Muslim expletives at the mosque on several occasions.
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