New Yorker arrested for building bomb to blow himself up in DC on Election Day
One New York man was so upset with the direction of the US, he started building bombs, and told a reporter he intended to blow himself up on the National Mall in Washington, DC on Election Day.
Local police and the FBI searched the home of Paul Rosenfeld in Orangetown, just a few miles up the Hudson River from New York City, on Thursday, WNBC reported citing law enforcement officials.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the federal court in White Plains, agents found a “functional bomb” in Rosenfeld’s basement, which consisted of black powder inside a plywood box. The agents said Rosenfeld ordered large quantities of black powder over the internet, built smaller explosive devices and tested them.
He was charged with unlawfully manufacturing a destructive device and interstate transportation and receipt of an explosive.
Rosenfeld, 56, has no criminal history and no known connections to any ideology or international terrorist group, according to local officials. He reportedly told a journalist in Pennsylvania that he was angry about the “direction” of the country and intended to express that by blowing himself up in Washington.
“Had he been successful, Rosenfeld's alleged plot could have claimed the lives of innocent bystanders and caused untold destruction,” William Sweeney Jr., assistant director of the FBI's New York field office, said in a statement. The man had intended to “detonate a large explosive to kill himself and draw attention to his radical beliefs.”
What exactly those beliefs might have been, Sweeney did not say. Rosenfeld’s political affiliation was not disclosed. His arrest comes at a time of heated rhetoric and frequent violence in US politics, as the ruling Republicans have faced opposition from Democrats in forms ranging from peaceful protests to personal targeting of officials in public places, death threats, physical violence, a shooting and a stabbing.
Former Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton defended such behavior as necessary for the Democrats to win the upcoming midterm elections.
“You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” Clinton told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in an interview that aired Tuesday. “That’s why I believe if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that’s when civility can start again. But until then the only thing the Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength.”
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