Florida Man Trashes Mosque, Leaves Bacon At Front Door

A suspect has been arrested after a mosque in Florida was found vandalized and defiled on New Year's Day.

Michael Scott Wolfe, 35, was arrested Monday evening and charged with criminal mischief to a mosque, which is a third-degree felony, USA Today reports.

Surveillance video captured a man wearing a T-shirt and camouflage pants, using a machete to enter the Masjid Al-Mumin mosque in Titusville through a carport. He then tore down lights, broke windows and left bacon on the front doorstep. The Quran forbids Muslims from consuming pork.

Local leaders said the incident was terrifying and offensive, but that it wouldn't stop the Muslim community from attending the mosque.

"People are afraid to take their children back to the mosque -- a machete was used," Rasha Mubarak, the Orlando coordinator for the Council on American-Islamic Relations told USA Today. "They know we don't consume pork. This is something that those who are Islamaphobic tend to bring up or use."

It wasn't immediately clear whether police were looking at the incident as a possible hate crime, but local mosque owners were calling for a further investigation by the FBI, WESH reports.

Wolfe was transported to Brevard County Jail, where he was held on $2,000 bail. He was expected to appear in court Tuesday. He's been arrested more than a dozen times, over charges including loitering, grand theft, and resisting arrest, according to My News 13.

CAIR reports that there have been at least 70 targeted attacks on U.S. mosques since the advocacy group started compiling the data in 1999 -- and 2015 was the worst year for such attacks, with 17 major incidents. The Huffington Post's Christopher Mathias reports that there have been at least 73 Islamophobic acts in the U.S. since the Paris attacks.

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