A 43-year-old Army veteran was taken into custody after deploying an incendiary device and firing a pellet gun outside 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan, a federal building housing ICE offices, injuring at least two people in what the FBI is investigating as an anti-government attack.
Andrew Arrabaca wheeled a cart bearing a sign that read "ICE Off Our Streets" to the front of the federal building around 9 a.m. on Wednesday, poured gasoline on the ground, and ignited it with a lighter and a large firework canister, the Daily Mail reported. The resulting fire sent black smoke billowing into the morning air in one of the busiest corridors of lower Manhattan.
After starting the blaze, Arrabaca pulled out an airsoft rifle and fired five to seven pellets toward the building, which houses not only an ICE field office but also an FBI field office, an immigration court, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services offices. A Federal Protective Service officer tackled and detained him on the spot, sustaining minor injuries in the process, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed.
FBI New York Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle Jr. laid out the scope of what investigators found on the suspect during a press conference later that morning. Arrabaca had come prepared with two axes, a hammer, a machete, three fixed-blade knives, six incendiary devices or fireworks, and what Fox News described as a manifesto and other "anti-ICE stuff."
Barnacle did not hold back about the suspect's intent:
"Mr. Arrabaca was looking to injure people and harm people. He had two axes, a hammer, a machete and three knives. Fixed blade knives. He had, as I said earlier, six incendiary devices or fireworks, and he had some other destructive items going."
At a separate point in the briefing, Barnacle described the mechanics of the attack in detail. Arrabaca poured gasoline onto the ground and lit it with a lighter and a large firework canister, producing what Barnacle called a "pretty big flame, as you've seen on the internet." He then pulled the airsoft rifle from the cart and fired toward the building.
AP News reported that Barnacle called Arrabaca "an anti-American, anti-government extremist." The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force opened an investigation into the incident, characterizing it formally as "an anti-government attack on a facility."
Arrabaca served in the U.S. Army from 2001 to 2005 as a repairman and mechanic on Patriot missile systems, Barnacle told reporters. Local station WABC reported that the suspect had a history of anti-ICE activity, though no further detail on that background has emerged publicly.
One unresolved detail: how many people were hurt. The Daily Mail's initial report cited three injuries. FBI Director Kash Patel, posting on X shortly after the incident, said "two minor injuries reported thus far." The Washington Examiner reported that two federal employees and one civilian suffered minor injuries, which would account for three total, but Patel's post referenced only two.
DHS confirmed that at least one of the injured was the Federal Protective Service officer who physically subdued Arrabaca. The nature and severity of the other injuries remain unspecified beyond being described as minor.
No formal charges have been publicly announced. The FBI, NYPD, DHS, and ICE had not responded to requests for comment beyond the press conference and social media statements at the time of the initial reporting. The incident comes amid a broader pattern of federal law enforcement confronting threats directed at government facilities and personnel.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted on X that the attack was "deeply disturbing" and said he was "relieved no one was seriously injured." He pledged his administration would "continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city, and hold accountable any who threaten that."
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries issued a statement praising law enforcement for their "swift actions" and calling for the suspect to be "prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law." Jeffries added that "acts of terror and violence have no place in our City and will never be tolerated."
Those are the right words. But words come cheap in a city where anti-ICE rhetoric has been mainstreamed for years, where local officials have built political careers around obstructing federal immigration enforcement, where "sanctuary" policies have been treated as moral imperatives rather than the deliberate interference with federal law that they are. A man showed up to a federal building with gasoline, fireworks, axes, a machete, three knives, and a sign demanding ICE get off the streets. The FBI is calling it anti-government extremism. The question that deserves an honest answer is how the political environment in cities like New York has treated ICE as the villain for so long that someone decided to act on it.
That is not a claim that any politician caused this attack. Arrabaca is responsible for his own actions. But the years-long campaign to demonize immigration enforcement, to frame ICE agents as jackbooted thugs rather than federal officers doing lawful work, has consequences. When individuals cross the line from protest to violence against federal targets, the people who spent years stoking that hostility owe more than a press release.
Just The News reported that three people suffered minor injuries and confirmed the full inventory of weapons Arrabaca brought with him. Barnacle's description of the suspect's arsenal, two axes, a hammer, a machete, three fixed-blade knives, six incendiary devices, and additional unspecified "destructive items", makes clear this was not a spontaneous act of frustration. This was planned.
The Federal Protective Service officer who tackled Arrabaca before he could do worse deserves recognition. That officer ran toward a man armed with edged weapons, incendiary devices, and a pellet gun, and put him on the ground. It is the kind of frontline law enforcement work that rarely makes the highlight reel but keeps people alive.
Barnacle told reporters that Arrabaca served four years in the Army, working on Patriot missile defense systems. Nothing in the available reporting explains what happened between his 2005 discharge and Wednesday morning's attack. That gap, two decades, is one investigators will need to fill.
Whether Arrabaca acted alone remains an open question. So does the full content of the manifesto Fox News reported he was carrying. Those details will matter as prosecutors decide what charges to bring and whether this case is treated as domestic terrorism, a hate crime against federal employees, or something else entirely.
For now, the confirmed facts are damning enough. A man loaded a cart with weapons and incendiary devices, rolled it to a federal immigration building in broad daylight, set a fire, and fired at the building. He carried a sign that made his target clear. He brought enough hardware to do far worse than he managed. And the only reason the damage was limited to minor injuries is that a security officer acted fast enough to stop him.
When politicians and activists spend years telling people that immigration enforcement is inherently illegitimate, they should not be surprised when someone decides to treat it that way.
