A 43-year-old Army veteran showed up to one of the most heavily surveilled federal buildings in New York City on Monday morning carrying two axes, a machete, three knives, commercial fireworks, airsoft guns, flammable liquid, and a cart with an anti-ICE slogan written on it. This is not a fever dream. This actually happened at 8:20 in the morning.
What Went Down at 26 Federal Plaza
According to CBS News, Andrew Arrabaca of Poughkeepsie, New York rolled up to 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan and got to work. He fired airsoft pellets into the air, ignited a bundle of commercial-grade fireworks, then doused parts of the building in flammable liquid and set it on fire. Federal agents tackled him before things could get worse.
The building he chose is not a random target. 26 Federal Plaza houses dozens of federal agencies including the FBI, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. If you were designing a building to symbolize everything an anti-ICE activist might be furious about, you could not do better than this address.
Three people were injured, CBS News reports. Two were government employees. One was grazed by fireworks. A security officer suffered minor injuries while tackling the suspect. It could have been considerably worse given the arsenal Arrabaca showed up with.
The Weapons List Is Something Else
Let's just go through it. Per CBS News, Arrabaca was carrying: two axes, a machete, three knives, commercial-grade fireworks, other destructive devices, two airsoft guns, and flammable liquid. He also had a manifesto in his bag, according to a DHS spokesperson.
CBS News law enforcement analyst Richard Esposito described the airsoft guns and fireworks as "things you might use in paintball-type events." Sure. Technically accurate. Also technically the kind of framing that makes it easy to miss that this man brought an axe. Two axes. To a federal building. In Manhattan. Before nine in the morning.
FBI spokesperson James Barnacle did not mince words: "He came armed with bad intentions. Looking to injure people and harm people." Law enforcement also seized Arrabaca's car and is working to obtain a search warrant for it, meaning investigators believe there may be more to find.
The Anti-ICE Connection
The FBI described Arrabaca as an anti-ICE activist. The little cart he wheeled to the scene had "ICE off our streets" written on it. The FBI New York Joint Terrorism Task Force is now investigating the incident, CBS News reports.
This is the part where context matters and nobody should pretend otherwise. Opposition to ICE's enforcement operations is widespread, mainstream, and shared by a significant portion of the American public. Mayors, members of Congress, and millions of ordinary people have protested ICE's tactics. That political view, however sincerely held, does not explain or excuse showing up to a federal building with a machete and lighting things on fire. Those are two separate things and conflating them helps nobody.
Arrabaca is a U.S. Army veteran from Poughkeepsie. What drove him from whatever his life looked like before Monday morning to standing in front of a burning federal building with an axe in each hand is something investigators will presumably try to answer. The manifesto in his bag will be a starting point.
The City Responds
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the incident "deeply disturbing" and said his team is in contact with the NYPD and will support the federal investigation. "Our administration will continue to ensure that every New Yorker is safe in their city and hold accountable any who threaten that," he wrote on social media, according to CBS News.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed the details of the attack at a press briefing. Police warned commuters to expect traffic delays, mass transit disruptions, and road closures near Worth Street and Lafayette Street in Lower Manhattan for much of Monday. Video from the scene showed heavy smoke billowing in front of the building and officers making the arrest.
The Dingo Take
Here is the uncomfortable thing about covering a story like this. The political grievance at the center of it, opposition to ICE, is one that tens of millions of Americans share. ICE has separated families, deported people who have lived in this country for decades, and operated with a level of brutality that has been documented extensively by journalists and human rights organizations. Being angry about that is not fringe. It is not extreme. It is a reasonable response to documented government conduct.
But Andrew Arrabaca did not write a letter to his congressman. He did not organize a protest. He loaded a cart with axes, a machete, fireworks, and a manifesto, and he showed up to a building full of people who mostly process paperwork for a living, and he started a fire. Three people got hurt. The fact that they were not hurt worse is luck and the fast response of agents who tackled him. This is not protest. This is an attack, and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force is treating it exactly like one.
The MAGA right will spend the next seventy-two hours using this incident as a cudgel to dismiss every legitimate criticism of ICE ever made by anyone, forever. That is cynical and wrong. But the left has to be clear-eyed here too: violence at federal buildings is not a tactic. It is not a statement. It is a crime that puts ordinary workers in danger and hands your political opponents the narrative they have been waiting for. Whatever Arrabaca believed he was accomplishing Monday morning, he accomplished none of it.
