Ex-Soldier Charged in Fiery Attack on NYC Federal Building

A former US Army soldier was charged with arson and jailed without bail on Tuesday after prosecutors say he confessed to carrying out a fiery attack on a Manhattan federal office building where immigration hearings are held. Andrew Arrabaca, 43, plotted the attack for months and considered striking other New York City targets before setting a fire, lighting fireworks, and firing a pellet gun Monday morning outside 26 Federal Plaza, Assistant US Attorney Samantha Fry said.

• Arrabaca told investigators that he understood people could've been hurt or killed and that he he was willing to accept his own death in the process, Fry said. She called his actions "calculated, targeted, and unacceptably dangerous," the AP reports. Fry said that while only a few people were injured, "this attack could have ended much more tragically" at a building where hundreds of federal employees work, parents leave children at a daycare and members of the public use a post office inside.

Three people sustained minor injuries, including a person who had an immigration court hearing at the building, which also houses offices for ICE and the FBI. The building has been a magnet for protests against President Trump's immigration crackdown. Arrabaca sat quietly between his lawyers at his initial appearance in Manhattan federal court. He was not required to enter a plea. The charge, arson or explosion causing damage to US government property, carries a minimum sentence of seven years in prison.

• US Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky ordered Arrabaca jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn, rejecting his lawyer's suggestion that he be sent to a locked ward at a Veterans Health Administration facility for a mental health evaluation. Instead, the judge said she wants Arrabaca to be evaluated at the jail as soon as possible. "This is an individual who, notwithstanding what he appears to have done, has served our country and is quite clearly ill," Tarnofsky said.

• Arrabaca was living in his car and slept in a park the night before the attack, Fry said. In 2020, she said, he was prescribed medication for a mental health condition but he stopped taking it about a year later. A military-style helmet that authorities say Arrabaca wore during the attack had words on it suggesting he was suicidal, defense lawyer Jennifer Brown said. Brown noted that Arrabaca has no criminal history and, until recently, had a long history of employment.
• Arrabaca repaired Patriot missile systems while in the Army from 2001 to 2004. He also served a year in the New York Army National Guard. He had no deployments and left the Army as a specialist, an Army spokesperson said.
• Arrabaca started planning the attack as far back as January and went to upstate New York to buy weapons and Pennsylvania to buy fireworks, Fry said. Outside the Manhattan building, he was tackled by a security officer after authorities say he dumped gasoline outside an employee entrance and set the sidewalk on fire.
• Arrabaca had two axes, three fixed-blade knives, a hammer, a machete, and a wagon affixed with a sign that said "ICE Off Our Streets," authorities said. As he was being arrested, he made "anti-government and anti-American statements" and derogatory remarks about ICE, James Barnacle, the head of the FBI's New York field office, said at a news conference on Monday.