Bail set at $100,000 for alleged failed-suicide arsonist
Abdul Jabar Mohamed, 28, was arraigned today in his bed in the Mass. General burn unit, where he is being treated for serious burns authorities say he suffered when he tampered with the gas line in a Roxbury apartment in an attempt to kill himself, sparking a six-alarm fire that damaged apartments in seven connected buildings.
Roxbury District Court Judge David Weingarten set bail at $100,000 on charges of assault with intent to murder, arson of a dwelling, igniting a destructive device or substance, malicious destruction of property, and causing injury to a firefighter, the Suffolk County District Attorney's office reports. Prosecutors had sought bail of $500,000.
Assistant District Attorney Dana Pierce said Mohamed went to some effort to start the fire that burned dozens out of their apartments - and led to a dramatic rescue when a woman dropped her six-year-old grandson to fall into the arms of a firefighter three stories below. In a statement, the DA's office said:
Mohamed pulled the relative's gas stove away from the wall, then reached behind it and wrenched away a pipe leading from the stove to the building's gas main. When the pipe was "twisted, mangled, and broken away" from the stove, he allegedly set it alight with an open flame. The power of the explosion knocked away part of the building’s exterior facing Wardman Road and Westminster Avenue.
"The fire extended vertically and engulfed all three floors," Pierce said at the arraignment. "It spread horizontally about 100 feet, encompassing most of the roof."
The Boston Business Journal reports that Urban Edge, which develops low and moderate-income housing, is trying to find new places to live for the 70 residents currently without homes.
Innocent, etc.
Comments
Why isn't this being called domestic terrorism?
There are many methods of suicide but when one ignites a natural gas line in a building occupied by seventy others in the middle of the night, it's not a suicide attempt, it's domestic terrorism. If Mohamed Atta had somehow survived, would his actions have been called a suicide attempt? Sheesh.
I hope in this case, Mr. Mohamed is being charged with 70 counts of assault with intent to murder, not just the one. Consecutive sentences for each count are in order. This has all of the hallmarks of Islamic Jihad including economy of force (one attacker against 70 potential victims), efficiency (an existing gas line and a match), unity of command (one suspect commanding the operation) and secrecy (acting with no advanced warning in the middle of the night). Sometimes it is what it is.
.
Why, hello thar, racism.
Now now, I'm sure Fishy feels the same about the Westford teen
Right?
Right?
I'd be more worried why this guy get 100,000K bail set for this offense, while some guy that was the get away driver for a tripple murder walked on a small bail, and it was only revoked when he was picked up for gun charges.
Seems to me Judges bail decisions are seriously out of whack. This guy needs medical evaluations; he's obviously nuts.
If his name were Andrew James Mason ...
... would you have written the above paragraph?
Domestic Terrorism?
Doh. Here I thought maybe somebody was finally describing the police state reaction to lawful peaceful assembly and free speech in various areas of the country as it is.
Nevermind.
It was Abdul Jabar Mohamed, not Andrew James Mason
@Jeff F: No, because a BB gun is hardly the equivalent of a natural gas firebomb. Your comparison fails on its face.
@Ron Newman: I try not to deal in hypotheticals. The defendant is Abdul Jabar Mohamed, not Andrew James Mason.
@eeka: Racism? Perhaps both racism and anti-American hatred on Mr. Mohamed's part, as most of the survivors I've seen interviewed were black. Racism on my part? Please. I didn't rip out the gas line in the middle of the night and strike the match, Mr. Mohamed did. In the kitchen. No doubt with plenty of implements (knives, glass etc.) to commit suicide without the collateral damage.
-----
"What is so striking--and so alien to civilized sensibilities--about the terrorists of radical Islam is their cult of death. Their rhetoric is soaked in the glory of immolation (death by burning): immolation of the infidel and self-immolation of the avenger." Dr. Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist
Prove it
So what if his name is Abdul Jabar Mohamed?
Prove he's a Muslim.
My great grandfather was Abdoo Maroun. He was a Roman Catholic.
We don't need your name to know you're trash.
I love this guy
If Fishy didn't exist, I'd have to invent him.
Now nobody has to just take my word for it that right-wing hysterics are blind to their own hatred and racism. They can just come here and read the bile Fishy spews.
His whole argument: it would just be bad if the perpetrator were like him. But because the perpetrator appears to be a Muslim, it's terrorism. Cuz Islam = evil, and makes everything worse.
Do you think Fishy exercised the same kind of discrimination when he was a cop? I bet he did, and got away with it his entire career.
Ever more complicated ...
My husband has relatives in the home country that are Orthodox and Muslim ... in the same family, bearing the same family names.
I had fellow graduate students from the same country who were of three different religions ... again, you couldn't tell by name because they were all of the same national tradition, language, and culture.
(head explosion yet?)
No
cognitive dissonance is fun.
Junmping to Conclusions Based on His Apparent Race
The reason that people are accusing you of being a racist is that you appear to be jumping to the conclusion that this was terrorism based on the supposition that this person is middle-eastern from the sound of his name and that, in your view, that makes it likely to be an act of terrorism. Even assuming this person is middle eastern (which I'll grant sounds likely) and even assuming that he is a muslim (which is possible but not certain), neither of those things mean that (a) he was a radicalized muslim; or (b) that this was an act of terrorism as opposed to a horribly botched suicide attempt. There are 1.5 billion muslims in the world (more than 1 in six people). The fact that a crime is committed by a muslim person simply has no statistical relationship to whether it was likely an act of terrorism or not. You might as well argue that because the people who carried out 9/11 had brown eyes that people with brown eyes being involved in a crime make it more likely to be an act of terrorism.
I won't quabble with you that this person should be charged with attempted murder, or some version of that based on recklessness, of all of the people in that building. Regardless of whether this guy was just trying to kill himself or not, these kind of horribly reckless actions deserve severe punishment.