The suspect, a military vet, appears to be an anti-ICE activist with a history of climate activism as well.
Law enforcement agencies have identified the suspect in this morning’s attack on the federal building in lower Manhattan as Andrew John Arrabaca, 43, an Army veteran who lives in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
Although no charges have yet been filed, the FBI held a press conference during which a top bureau official described Arrabaca as an anti-ICE activist — elaborating that, in carrying out the attack, he used a cart that was carrying anti-ICE literature. In being placed under arrest, moreover, Arrabaca is said to have yelled “terms derogatory to ICE.” Video from the scene shows that what Newsweek called the “wagon” — I suspect it’s the aforementioned “cart” — bore the message “ICE Off Our Streets.”
ICE, the Homeland Security Department’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, is principally responsible for carrying out the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies. ICE has offices at the federal building — 26 Federal Plaza, across the street from two federal courthouses. As I related this morning, the FBI’s New York Office is located there, too.
Three people, two federal employees and one alien who was at the building for an immigration proceeding, suffered minor injuries in the attack.
There are photos of the suspect, wearing a helmet the bureau described as “military style,” pouring an apparently flammable liquid onto the ground outside the building and igniting it, reportedly using fireworks. (See this ABC News report.) He was armed with a pellet gun, from which he fired five to seven shots in the direction of the building (which is why first reports at 8:30 a.m. were of a shooting incident). The FBI official said the “incendiary device” was “a large firework in a cannister that proceeded to catch on fire.”
At the time of his arrest, the feds say the suspect was in possession of “two axes, a hammer, a machete, and three knives.” He also had other incendiary devices, which apparently were not lit during the attack.
Arrabaca reportedly served in the Army from 2001 to 2004 with the rank of specialist, who worked for part of his tour as a mechanic on Patriot missile systems. He also served in New York Army National Guard until 2005; he was never deployed overseas.
According to Newsweek, Arrabaca is currently employed as a preservation company program assistant at Hudson River Community Health. He appears to have worked previously at the U.S. Census Bureau and as a research assistant at the psychology department at SUNY New Paltz — from which he graduated in 2008 with a psychology degree.
It appears Arrabaca was also involved in climate activism circa 2013–14, calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to dramatically cut fuel consumption and petitioning New York officials to aggressively combat pollution.
Besides the FBI, the NYPD has also provided the media with information about today’s attack and the suspect. The NYPD is one of the agencies in the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Assuming (as I do) that charges will soon be filed, they are certain to be federal charges — the building is a federal facility, and the evidence amassed to this point indicates this was quite intentionally a strike against the federal government.
The FBI official, James Barnacle, who runs the bureau’s New York office, told the press that Arrabaca made post-arrest admissions to the effect that “he was targeting the building and he was OK if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians.”