Cody Crawford was arrested Wednesday night. He’s accused of setting fire to the Corvallis mosque just two days after FBI agents arrested a Somali-American on a charge of plotting to set off a bomb at Portland’s annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony.
A court document says that during an encounter with a police officer three weeks after the firebombing, Crawford ranted against Muslims and told the officer, “Christians can jihad too.”
The mosque was where the suspect in a Portland bomb plot once worshipped.
Cody Crawford, who lived a block from the mosque, was arrested Wednesday night. FBI agents and police searched his home shortly after the Nov. 28 firebombing.
Court documents say Crawford is a “potential major contributor” of DNA on a blue Maglite flashlight found near the mosque the morning of the firebombing. The documents also show that during a later contact with police, Crawford described himself as a Christian warrior, ranted against Muslims and told an officer he looked like President Barack Obama.
“You look like Obama. You are a Muslim like him. Jihad goes both ways. Christians can jihad too,” a court document quotes Crawford as telling a McMinnville officer after his Dec. 14 arrest on a charge unrelated to the firebombing.
Crawford is accused of torching the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center in Corvallis two days after the arrest in Portland of Mohamed Osman Mohamud in an FBI sting. Mohamud is charged with attempting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony attended by thousands in a downtown square.
Federal officials had at first speculated that the mosque firebombing might have been in retaliation for the Portland bomb plot.
Authorities quickly turned their attention to Crawford after he said a flashlight found at the scene of the firebombing looked like his and had disappeared from his porch.
In the search of his house, police and the FBI took DNA samples and seized computers, digital camera equipment, a gas can and a lighter, and sent the evidence to be examined.
Crawford insisted in an earlier Associated Press interview that he was “100 percent innocent.” He added he is a peaceful person and does not dislike Muslims.
In the Portland case, Mohamud has pleaded not guilty to attempting to detonate a weapon of mass destruction, and his lawyers have suggested they’re going to mount a defense based on entrapment.
