CNN
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Minneapolis police are asking for the general public’s assist in figuring out a doable suspect linked to separate fires at space mosques on Sunday and Monday.
The police division posted footage of the particular person together with the plea for help on Fb. Surveillance video and footage of the doable suspect had been launched after fires had been set on the Mall 24 mosque Sunday and the Mercy Middle mosque Monday.
Nobody was damage in both incident. Police mentioned there have been no arrests.
It’s unclear whether or not the fires on the two mosques are linked, however in a information launch obtained by CNN affiliate KARE on Tuesday, the chief mentioned, “Because of the totality of the circumstances, we are going to examine these fires as if they’re linked till confirmed in any other case.”
Surveillance video from Sunday reveals a masked particular person carrying a big brown bag {that a} Muslim neighborhood chief says held a container stuffed with gas that was used to gentle a hearth within the Mall 24 mosque’s lavatory.
Jaylani Hussein, the chief director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, informed CNN that worshippers disrupted the doable suspect, who fled the scene.
“We averted a significant tragedy. The quantity of liquid that he dropped at trigger the hurt that we expect right here – this mall might have been engulfed but it surely wasn’t,” Hussein mentioned Monday.
Main injury to the mosque was averted when “a lot of the gas poured down the (flooring) drain,” Hussein mentioned.
In a information convention Monday, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara mentioned there’s an energetic investigation and that the division has been involved with the FBI and US Lawyer’s Workplace.
“That is now doubtlessly an act of arson that occurred in a home of worship. So, now it’s doubtlessly a federal offense,” O’Hara mentioned.
CNN has reached out to police for touch upon the alleged assaults.
On Monday, the town’s fireplace division additionally responded to the fireplace on the Mercy Middle mosque. Hussein informed CNN full credit score goes to the fireplace division, who saved the mosque from critical injury.
Together with the 2 current incidents, Hussein informed CNN there have been 4 hits on Minneapolis’ mosques to this point this yr.