Police, Mankato mosque at odds over reported arson attempt

Mankato police said they’ve issued a citation to a man who lit fireworks near the Islamic Center of Mankato, which had prompted fears of an anti-Muslim attack.

Members of the Islamic Center of Mankato say the man attempted to set part of their mosque on fire as part of a “brazen” act on Sunday afternoon.

The Mankato police, however, said the Islamic Center of Mankato had not faced any threat.

“Authorities have no reason to believe that the Islamic Center was targeted,” Paul David, spokesman for the city of Mankato and its Department of Public Safety, said in a statement Tuesday.

The man, who was not identified, has been cited for sale, possession and use of prohibited fireworks, a misdemeanor, the Mankato Department of Public Safety said in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

The man told police he was unaware shooting off the fireworks would cause alarm, the statement said.

The disputed events involve a surveillance video showing a man on a bicycle stopping in the parking lot near the Islamic Center on Sunday afternoon.

Members of the mosque were waiting for midday prayer and said they noticed the man was behaving suspiciously, said Abdi Sabrie, a co-founder and board member of the mosque.

Sabrie said the video shows the man lighting something and holding it to leaves and brush near a sign for the mosque, on a wall by the Islamic Center. Attendees inside the mosque said they feared he was trying to light a fire and chased the man away.

But police on Tuesday morning disputed this description of the incident, with a statement saying the man was lighting two bottle rockets that went off into the sky without hitting or damaging anything.

Sabrie, who was not at the mosque during the incident, said he spoke to members who were there that day who disagree with the police version of what happened.

“They seem to be minimizing the incident,” Sabrie said. “Why would you come with a firecracker to a place with dry leaves, near the Islamic Center. ... It doesn’t make sense. I’m more concerned about the police response than the guy we drove away.”

Members of the Islamic Center, as well as the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), had said the incident was part of a pattern of anti-Muslim attacks.

“We are deeply troubled by this incident and call for a thorough investigation to bring the perpetrator to justice,” Jaylani Hussein, CAIR-Minnesota executive director, said in a statement Monday.

On Tuesday afternoon, the man who set off the bottle rockets returned to the mosque, Hussein and Sabrie said. A CAIR-Minnesota staff member called 911, and then followed the man after he attempted to flee, Hussein said in a call Tuesday.

Hussein said he hopes law enforcement does not take the man’s statements at face value but do their due diligence to make sure he has no connections to hate groups online.

Hussein said the incident marks the 40th attack on a mosque in Minnesota over the past three years. In 2023, one attack led to a St. Paul mosque being heavily damaged by fire.

Sabrie, the board member at the Islamic Center, said many in the Muslim community in Mankato worry that the alleged incident is related to the recent re-election of Donald Trump. He said the president-elect’s first term led to an increase in anti-Muslim vandalism attempts.

In 2016, a shirtless man attempted to tear down the Islamic Center’s sign, and in 2021, two vandals spray-painted slurs on a car owned by a member of the mosque.

“It seems like 2016 all over again,” Sabrie said, adding that the mosque will buy new and more sophisticated surveillance cameras and encourage its members to be more vigilant, he said.