A 43-year-old Army veteran who allegedly set fire outside a Manhattan federal building and fired pellets at bystanders now faces a federal arson charge carrying a mandatory minimum of seven years in prison, and the FBI says he planned it for months.
Andrew Arrabaca pulled a four-wheeled utility wagon loaded with fireworks, BB and pellet rifles, two axes, a hammer, a machete, and three knives to the entrance of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on Monday morning, Fox News reported. He arrived around 8:30 a.m., lit a large firework, poured a flammable liquid on the ground, and ignited a fire just feet from people entering the building. He then fired five to seven pellets from an airsoft rifle toward the entrance. Three people were injured. Federal officials arrested him shortly after.
The building houses immigration courts, ICE offices, FBI offices, and other federal agencies. Arrabaca's wagon carried a sign reading "ICE Off Our Streets," and his helmet bore several phrases, including "Kill yourself." Surveillance images included in the federal criminal complaint show bystanders standing just feet from the entrance when the fire erupted. At least one victim, an immigrant who had come to the building for a court hearing, suffered a gash to the back of the head from flying debris.
James Barnacle, assistant director in charge of the FBI's New York Field Office, spoke to reporters at the scene Monday. He did not hold back.
"He is an anti-American, anti-government extremist."
Barnacle said Arrabaca "came armed with bad intentions" and that he was "looking to injure people and harm people," Just The News reported. The FBI said Arrabaca told law enforcement he targeted a specific entrance because it was busy with employees and members of the public. He admitted, the FBI stated, that "he was okay if he hurt or killed people going in and out of the building, whether they were federal employees or civilians."
Arrabaca served in the U.S. Army from 2001 to 2004 as a mechanic on Patriot missile systems and later served in the Army National Guard until July 2005, the New York Post reported. Voter records show he was a registered Democrat and a member of the left-wing Working Families Party. Before the attack, he had no stable residence or employment and was living out of his car.
The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating the attack as a domestic terrorism matter. Arrabaca was also found to be carrying a manifesto, according to the Post, suggesting the ideological motivation ran deeper than a spontaneous outburst.
This was not a spur-of-the-moment act. Prosecutors described the attack as "calculated." Federal officials said Arrabaca began buying supplies and visiting sites around New York City as far back as January. He traveled to upstate New York and Pennsylvania to acquire weapons and fireworks, AP News reported, demonstrating a sustained, premeditated effort to attack government property.
The night before the attack, Arrabaca made his way to Lower Manhattan with his arsenal and spent the night in a park. He reportedly visited several other sites around the city while planning the assault, though federal officials have not publicly identified those locations. Among the items in his wagon was a consumer firework labeled "Nuclear Warhead."
Prosecutors alleged Arrabaca was willing to accept his own death in carrying out the attack, the Washington Examiner reported. That willingness, combined with the weapons cache and the months of preparation, paints a picture of someone who had moved well past grievance into operational planning. The persistent gaps in domestic security that allow such plots to reach execution remain a pressing concern for federal law enforcement.
Arrabaca appeared in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robyn F. Tarnofsky. He did not enter a plea. His defense lawyer, Jennifer Brown, asked that he be placed in a Department of Veterans Affairs mental health hospital for evaluation and treatment, arguing that Arrabaca suffers from mental health issues.
Judge Tarnofsky acknowledged Arrabaca's service and his apparent illness but rejected the VA placement. She ordered him released to a different mental health facility, citing doubts about whether he would comply with treatment at a VA hospital.
"The crime you're charged with is troubling. The nature and circumstances, the fact that it was planned over time and carried out at a time when it could cause significant harm."
Tarnofsky added that the attack "wasn't something that was done on a Sunday", a reference to the sustained planning that preceded it. She told Arrabaca directly: "The mental health issues that are quite likely the cause of the behavior, I seriously considered the alternatives proposed by Ms. Brown, but I had to reject them because I don't think it's sufficiently clear you would comply with treatment."
The judge also noted, as AP News reported, that "this is an individual who, notwithstanding what he appears to have done, has served our country and is quite clearly ill." A preliminary hearing is scheduled for August 4.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Fry offered a blunter assessment of the stakes: "This attack could have ended much more tragically." Given the surveillance images showing bystanders just feet from the blast, that is not an overstatement. The incident recalls the recurring pattern of security failures that have left federal personnel and the public exposed to preventable threats.
Arrabaca made anti-government and anti-ICE statements during the incident and upon his arrest. The "ICE Off Our Streets" sign on his wagon, the manifesto in his possession, and his membership in the Working Families Party point to a man whose political convictions had curdled into something far more dangerous than protest.
26 Federal Plaza has been a frequent site of protests against ICE and immigration enforcement. But there is a wide gulf between exercising the right to protest and arriving at a government building before dawn with gasoline, axes, a machete, and a firework called "Nuclear Warhead." Arrabaca crossed that line deliberately, by his own admission to federal agents.
The attack injured three people, including an immigrant who had come to the building for a hearing, the very population that anti-ICE activists claim to defend. One victim suffered a gash to the back of the head from debris. The full extent of injuries to the other victims has not been publicly detailed. In an era when ideologically driven attacks on civilian infrastructure remain a global threat, the domestic variety demands the same seriousness.
Arrabaca faces a mandatory minimum of seven years in federal prison on the arson charge alone. Federal prosecutors have not indicated whether additional charges are forthcoming, but the weapons cache and the scope of the planning leave room for further action.
When a man spends months assembling an arsenal, writes a manifesto, travels across state lines to buy fireworks and weapons, sleeps in a park to stage his attack, and then tells the FBI he was willing to kill civilians, the system should not need a second warning to keep him locked up.
