A California man is in jail on a terrorism charge after he was arrested in Dearborn for allegedly trying to blow up the biggest mosque in metro Detroit, Dearborn officials said today.

The suspect was arrested in the parking lot of the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn on Monday, while hundreds were inside the mosque that sits along Ford Rd., police said. He came to the city because of its large Arab-American and Muslim population, police said.

Roger Stockhman, 63, was arraigned Wednesday on one count on a threat of terrorism or false report and one count of explosive-possession of bombs with unlawful intent for possession of Class C fireworks, Dearborn Police said. “He’s very dangerous,” Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad told the Free Press. “We took his threat to be very serious.”

Haddad said the man was previously known to law enforcement officials in other parts of the country. “He’s had a long history of being angry with the United States government,” Haddad said.

Stockhman, in jail on a $500,000 bond, drove from California to Dearborn and was caught with a car packed with high-end fireworks. The FBI has been notified about the incident, Haddad said. “He picked Dearborn as a stop because of the huge Arab and Muslim population,” Haddad said.

Dearborn has the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the U.S. and has garnered increased attention in recent years as a center of Islam.

Haddad said that a witness said that Stockhman was planning to blow up the mosque. The suspect “appeared to be acting alone,” Haddad said. “His threat has been mitigated.”

A preliminary examination is set for Friday before Judge Mark Sommers in 19th District Court in Dearborn, police said.

The Islamic Center was holding a funeral at the time the suspect was found in the parking lot, with up to 700 people inside. But the suspect doesn’t appear to have known about the funeral, Haddad said.

Dearborn Mayor Jack O’Reilly said the suspect “had a lot of high end fireworks. It was the max you could buy legally.” They were not “conventional explosives,” O’Reilly said. “But at that level, those things misused are terrific weapons.”

Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said “we thank law enforcement authorities for their quick and professional actions in this troubling incident.”

Detroit Free Press, 30 January 2011

See also CAIR news release, 30 January 2011

NEW YORK — A judge on Wednesday upheld hate-crime charges against a college student accused of slashing a taxi driver’s neck in an anti-Muslim attack that amplified concerns about tolerance shortly before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers said a grand jury had had enough evidence to indict Michael Enright. The judge said he planned to set a later trial date on March 30.

The 22-year-old film student has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault as hate crimes in the Aug. 24 stabbing.

Enright asked driver Ahmed Sharif whether he was Muslim, uttered an Arabic greeting and told him to “consider this a checkpoint” before cutting him with a folding knife, prosecutors said. After his arrest, Enright declared himself “a patriot” and told the police officers who arrested him that “you allow them to blow up buildings in this country,” according to authorities.

Enright’s lawyer, Lawrence Fisher, has said the School of Visual Arts student was beset by alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder after a trip to Afghanistan to film a documentary. He plans a psychiatric defense.

Associated Press, 26 January 2011

NEW YORK — A judge on Wednesday upheld hate-crime charges against a college student accused of slashing a taxi driver’s neck in an anti-Muslim attack that amplified concerns about tolerance shortly before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Manhattan state Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers said a grand jury had had enough evidence to indict Michael Enright. The judge said he planned to set a later trial date on March 30.

The 22-year-old film student has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and assault as hate crimes in the Aug. 24 stabbing.

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A Tulsa man faces a hate-crime charge on allegations that he sent an intimidating letter to the Islamic Peace Academy and posted a video online showing him desecrating a Quran, court records show. Jesse Quinn Harrison, 33, was charged Tuesday with one count each of transmitting a threatening letter and malicious intimidation or harassment – what Oklahoma statutes call a hate crime.

According to the charges, Harrison is accused of sending a nine-page letter to the Peace Academy, a private school for Muslim children in Tulsa, “with the intent to intimidate.” He also made a video that shows him “smearing pork on the Quran and an Islamic religious figure and grilling those items,” according to the charge. The charge states that the video was made to “produce violence directed to others because of their religious beliefs.”

A man with the same name and Tulsa address as those listed on the charges posted on Facebook a YouTube video that matches the one described in the charges. The 5½-minute video, posted to YouTube on Oct. 1, is attributed there to a “Rockwell Porter” – a name the charges list as an alias for Harrison. The video and a brief anti-Islamic message were posted by Harrison’s account on several additional Facebook pages, including those of the White House and the FBI. On a Dec. 15 Facebook entry, Harrison threatens to “march on the Tulsa Islamic Mosque” on New Year’s Eve.

Muneer Awad, executive director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said he didn’t know any details of the case, but he said more hostile rhetoric toward Islam has recently worked its way into the mainstream. “The rhetoric has not helped,” Awad said. “It has forced people to take an extreme stance.”

However, he said that although any threat should be taken seriously, cases such as Harrison’s are on the fringe. Many non-Muslims in Oklahoma have good relationships with the Muslim community, he said. “Whenever instances like this come up, we always have friends from the non-Muslim community to help,” Awad said.

Tulsa World, 30 December 2010

A 20-year-old immigrant from Somalia said someone assaulted her with pepper spray outside an Ohio mosque and told her to leave the country, spurring investigations by police and likely the FBI.

Saida Said said she was in her car running errands when a man in a car followed her to the mosque’s parking lot on the west side of Columbus on Monday afternoon. Said told reporters the man harassed her, swore at her, said she should leave the country and threatened to kill her. He then attacked her with pepper spray, she said.

Mosque officials called police, who took a report and turned it over to the prosecutor’s office. The FBI said Tuesday it will likely open a civil rights investigation, the results of which would be turned over to federal prosecutors for any possible charges.

Associated Press, 21 December 2010