Investigators have found no indication of political or ideological motivations behind a fire at a Detroit-area mosque set by a man whom police later killed in a shootout.
There also is no evidence that Ahmed Taqi acted as part of any group, FBI Special Agent Josh Hauxhurst said Saturday during a community meeting at the Al-Huda Islamic Association in Dearborn where the fire happened, according to The Detroit News.
“He may be the only person who knows why he set the fire,” Hauxhurst told about 150 people at the meeting. “We often see telegraphing of motives in cases. We haven’t seen that in this case.”
Officers on regular neighborhood patrol noticed the fire at the mosque on Feb. 12 around 1 a.m. Taqi, 37, shot at the officers outside the mosque and ran away, Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin said.
Officers followed and shot Taqi when he started shooting at them again, Shahin said.
Taqi was an Iraqi national and worked as a translator, Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud said Saturday.
Dearborn has one of the largest Arab-American populations in the U.S. No threats have been made against places of worship in the city since the fire and shooting, Hammoud added.
“The goal here was to demonstrate that what happened one week ago was an isolated incident,” he said.
Hammoud has said Taqi may have been “experiencing a mental health crisis at the time.”
(AP)
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Of course. No surprise here. The MAJORITY of alleged “hate crimes” that get publicity, especially so-called “Islamophobic” crimes, turn out to be fake. Either outright hoaxes, or, as here, ordinary crimes committed for various reasons that have nothing to do with hatred. Often, as here, committed by people from the same group that was supposedly the target of the alleged “hatred”.
By the way, this includes many alleged “antisemitic” incidents, that turn out not to be.