New York
Man charged with plotting shooting at Jewish center
NEW YORK (AP) — A Pakistani man was arrested in Canada this week and accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the latest conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities announced Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan had attempted to travel from Canada, where he lives, to New York City with the “stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”
The 20 year-old, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was apprehended Sept. 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror group, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
“Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.
It was unclear if Khan has a lawyer, where in Canada he was being held and when he may be brought to the U.S. to face the charges.
Spokespersons for the Justice Department and the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, which is handling the case, deferred to Canadian national police, which didn’t respond to an email seeking comment but said in a statement posted online that Khan will appear in the Superior Court of Justice in Montreal on Sept. 13.
“This planned antisemitic attack against Jewish people in the U.S. is deplorable and there is no place for such ideological and hate-motivated crime in Canada,” Michael Duheme, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said in the statement.
U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing ISIS propaganda videos and expressing his support for the terror group in social media posts and communications with others on an encrypted messaging app last November.
In conversations with two undercover law enforcement officers, he said he was trying start a “real offline cell” of ISIS in order to carry out attacks against “Israeli Jewish chabads” in America. Khan said he and another ISIS supporter based in the U.S. needed to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition, hunting knives and other materials, according to the Justice Department.
Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada and said he was considering conducting the attacks on either the Oct. 7 anniversary or on Oct. 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, authorities said.
On Aug. 20, he told the undercover officers that he had settled on targeting New York because of its sizeable Jewish population and sent a photograph of the specific area inside a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, according to the Justice Department.
His online messages described the Brooklyn site, which is not named in court documents, as “the ultra orthodox hasidic jews world headquarters,” according to authorities.
California
Man charged with killing 81 animals in a 3-hour shooting rampage
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man suspected of going on a three-hour shooting rampage in Northern California and killing 81 animals, including miniature horses, goats and chickens, pleaded not guilty to animal cruelty and other charges.
Vicente Arroyo, 39, made his first court appearance Thursday after Monterey County Sheriff deputies arrested him earlier in the week for allegedly using several weapons to shoot the animals being housed in pens and cages on a lot in the small community of Prunedale.
The animal owners do not want to be identified or speak with the media, Monterey County Sheriff Commander Andres Rosas told The Associated Press Friday.
“I went out there, and it was a pretty traumatic scene. These were people’s pets,” he said.
One of the miniature horses belonged to the owner of the lot where the animals were housed, and the other 80 belonged to someone who rented the land to house their pets, Rosas said.
According to court records, Arroyo was charged with killing 14 goats, nine chickens, seven ducks, five rabbits, a guinea pig and 33 parakeets and cockatiels. Arroyo is also charged with killing a pony named Lucky and two miniature horses named Estrella and Princessa, KSBW-TV reported.
Some animals survived the shooting that lasted several hours but had to be euthanized because of the severity of their injuries, Rosas said.
Rosas said Arroyo lived in a camper in a vineyard next to the lot where the animals were kept and that a motive is not yet known.
His attorney, William Pernik, said that after talking to Arroyo and his family he became concerned about his client’s mental competency and asked the judge for a mental health evaluation.
“We’re dealing with an individual who has very serious charges and who does not appear to be in the right state of mind to understand the proceedings against him,” Pernik said.
Pernik said that Arroyo’s family had reached out to various county agencies to get help for him but that “unfortunately, he did not receive that mental health help in time before this tragic incident.”
The judge ordered Arroyo, who is being held on a $1 million bail, to undergo a mental evaluation.
The court will get an update on Arroyo’s mental status in two weeks, Pernik said.
Authorities received multiple 911 calls around 3:25 a.m. Tuesday reporting shots being fired in Prunedale, an incorporated community about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the city of Salinas, he said.
Deputies who arrived on the scene could hear shots being fired, and a shelter-in-place was ordered for a five-mile radius.
Monterey County S.W.A.T. members were sent in, and the sheriff’s office also requested drone assistance from the nearby Seaside Fire Department and Gonzales Police Department, Rosas said.
Officers in an armored vehicle arrested Arroyo without incident, he said.
Deputies found a crashed pickup truck and recovered eight firearms, including long rifles, shotguns and handguns, at the scene. After executing a search warrant on Arroyo’s camper, they found another seven firearms, including an illegal AK-47 assault rifle, two ghost guns, and about 2,000 rounds of various calibers of ammunition, Rosas said.
Prosecutors charged Arroyo with dozens of charges involving animal cruelty, willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, illegal possession of an assault weapon, vandalism, drug possession and making criminal threats and terrorizing while being in possession of a firearm as a felon.
“This is obviously the most horrific animal cruelty case we’ve ever seen in this county, I’m sure,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon told KSBW-TV after the Thursday hearing.
Man charged with plotting shooting at Jewish center
NEW YORK (AP) — A Pakistani man was arrested in Canada this week and accused of plotting a mass shooting at a Jewish center in Brooklyn on the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas that sparked the latest conflict in the Middle East, federal authorities announced Friday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Muhammad Shahzeb Khan had attempted to travel from Canada, where he lives, to New York City with the “stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible.”
The 20 year-old, who is also known as Shahzeb Jadoon, was apprehended Sept. 4 and charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror group, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham.
“Jewish communities — like all communities in this country — should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack,” Garland said in a statement.
It was unclear if Khan has a lawyer, where in Canada he was being held and when he may be brought to the U.S. to face the charges.
Spokespersons for the Justice Department and the Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office, which is handling the case, deferred to Canadian national police, which didn’t respond to an email seeking comment but said in a statement posted online that Khan will appear in the Superior Court of Justice in Montreal on Sept. 13.
“This planned antisemitic attack against Jewish people in the U.S. is deplorable and there is no place for such ideological and hate-motivated crime in Canada,” Michael Duheme, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said in the statement.
U.S. authorities said Khan began sharing ISIS propaganda videos and expressing his support for the terror group in social media posts and communications with others on an encrypted messaging app last November.
In conversations with two undercover law enforcement officers, he said he was trying start a “real offline cell” of ISIS in order to carry out attacks against “Israeli Jewish chabads” in America. Khan said he and another ISIS supporter based in the U.S. needed to obtain AR-style assault rifles, ammunition, hunting knives and other materials, according to the Justice Department.
Khan also provided details about how he would cross the border from Canada and said he was considering conducting the attacks on either the Oct. 7 anniversary or on Oct. 11, which is the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, authorities said.
On Aug. 20, he told the undercover officers that he had settled on targeting New York because of its sizeable Jewish population and sent a photograph of the specific area inside a Jewish center where he planned to carry out the attack, according to the Justice Department.
His online messages described the Brooklyn site, which is not named in court documents, as “the ultra orthodox hasidic jews world headquarters,” according to authorities.
California
Man charged with killing 81 animals in a 3-hour shooting rampage
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A man suspected of going on a three-hour shooting rampage in Northern California and killing 81 animals, including miniature horses, goats and chickens, pleaded not guilty to animal cruelty and other charges.
Vicente Arroyo, 39, made his first court appearance Thursday after Monterey County Sheriff deputies arrested him earlier in the week for allegedly using several weapons to shoot the animals being housed in pens and cages on a lot in the small community of Prunedale.
The animal owners do not want to be identified or speak with the media, Monterey County Sheriff Commander Andres Rosas told The Associated Press Friday.
“I went out there, and it was a pretty traumatic scene. These were people’s pets,” he said.
One of the miniature horses belonged to the owner of the lot where the animals were housed, and the other 80 belonged to someone who rented the land to house their pets, Rosas said.
According to court records, Arroyo was charged with killing 14 goats, nine chickens, seven ducks, five rabbits, a guinea pig and 33 parakeets and cockatiels. Arroyo is also charged with killing a pony named Lucky and two miniature horses named Estrella and Princessa, KSBW-TV reported.
Some animals survived the shooting that lasted several hours but had to be euthanized because of the severity of their injuries, Rosas said.
Rosas said Arroyo lived in a camper in a vineyard next to the lot where the animals were kept and that a motive is not yet known.
His attorney, William Pernik, said that after talking to Arroyo and his family he became concerned about his client’s mental competency and asked the judge for a mental health evaluation.
“We’re dealing with an individual who has very serious charges and who does not appear to be in the right state of mind to understand the proceedings against him,” Pernik said.
Pernik said that Arroyo’s family had reached out to various county agencies to get help for him but that “unfortunately, he did not receive that mental health help in time before this tragic incident.”
The judge ordered Arroyo, who is being held on a $1 million bail, to undergo a mental evaluation.
The court will get an update on Arroyo’s mental status in two weeks, Pernik said.
Authorities received multiple 911 calls around 3:25 a.m. Tuesday reporting shots being fired in Prunedale, an incorporated community about 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the city of Salinas, he said.
Deputies who arrived on the scene could hear shots being fired, and a shelter-in-place was ordered for a five-mile radius.
Monterey County S.W.A.T. members were sent in, and the sheriff’s office also requested drone assistance from the nearby Seaside Fire Department and Gonzales Police Department, Rosas said.
Officers in an armored vehicle arrested Arroyo without incident, he said.
Deputies found a crashed pickup truck and recovered eight firearms, including long rifles, shotguns and handguns, at the scene. After executing a search warrant on Arroyo’s camper, they found another seven firearms, including an illegal AK-47 assault rifle, two ghost guns, and about 2,000 rounds of various calibers of ammunition, Rosas said.
Prosecutors charged Arroyo with dozens of charges involving animal cruelty, willful discharge of a firearm with gross negligence, illegal possession of an assault weapon, vandalism, drug possession and making criminal threats and terrorizing while being in possession of a firearm as a felon.
“This is obviously the most horrific animal cruelty case we’ve ever seen in this county, I’m sure,” Chief Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon told KSBW-TV after the Thursday hearing.
