FBI arrests Michigan man for planning mass shooting at synagogue: report

16 June 2023

The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Friday arrested and charged a man in Michigan "with one count of interstate communication of threats" after he boasted on social media about his intent to commit a mass shooting at the Shaarey Zedek synagogue in East Lansing on March 15th, 2024, CBS News reported on Friday.

"Seann Patrick Pietila discussed the attack on Instagram, court documents said, where he frequently posted anti-semitic remarks about hating Jews and being inspired by the men convicted of two mass shootings in New Zealand and Norway, who shot and killed dozens of people – driven to the murders by religious hatred and far-right extremism," CBS explained.

Pietila "told FBI agents he was the Instagram user behind the posts," CBS noted, adding that the date that Pietila saved in his phone was an "apparent reference to the deadly New Zealand mass shooting that occurred on March 15th, 2019."

Investigators also found "a list of equipment including pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails, and firearms" on Pietila's mobile device, CBS learned.

"During a search of his home," CBS continued, "court documents said FBI agents recovered numerous firearms, including a 12-gauge shotgun and ammunition, a .22 caliber rifle, a Sig Sauer .40 caliber pistol, and knives, skull masks, and a red and white Nazi flag."

Pietila's apprehension occurred on the same day that Robert Bowers was found guilty of carrying out the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that left eleven worshipers dead.

Bowers was convicted on all sixty-three federal charges and "now faces the possibility of the death sentence at the hands of the same jury for the deadliest attack ever on Jewish people in the US," per CNN.

CBS' full report is available here.

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