{"id":303645,"date":"2026-07-23T11:34:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:34:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303645\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T11:34:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T11:34:21","slug":"ex-army-soldier-jailed-after-nyc-federal-building-arson-attack-is-suny-new-paltz-grad-daily-freeman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303645\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Army soldier jailed after NYC federal building arson attack is SUNY New Paltz grad \u2013 Daily Freeman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>NEW YORK, N.Y. \u2014 The former soldier<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfreeman.com\/2026\/07\/21\/federal-building-incendiary-device\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> jailed and charged with arson<\/a> after being accused of carrying out a fiery attack on a Manhattan immigration hearing building is a Poughkeepsie resident and a graduate of SUNY New Paltz.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew John Arrabaca, 43, was arrested after he started a fire and fired a pellet gun Monday morning in front of 26 Federal plaza, injuring three, federal offices said. Arrabaca told investigators that he was aware of the dangerous nature of his actions, and said he was willing to accept his own death, federal authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant U.S. Attorney Samantha Fry called his actions \u201ccalculated, targeted and unacceptably dangerous,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfreeman.com\/2026\/07\/21\/federal-building-incendiary-device\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Associated Press.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He graduated from SUNY New Paltz in 2008, according to a LinkedIn profile, and majored in psychology.<\/p>\n<p>Arrabaca served in the U.S. military repairing Patriot missile systems from 2001-2004, and also served as a Support Specialist in the NY National Guard from 2004-2005, records show.<\/p>\n<p>Arrabaca was also politically active as an environmentalist.\u00a0Arrabaca\u2019s alleged attack was politically motivated, according to the Associated Press. The building at 26 Federal Plaza has been the target of several anti-ICE and anti-Trump protests in the past year. Arrabaca is currently jailed at a federal lockup in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK, N.Y. \u2014 The former soldier jailed and charged with arson after being accused of carrying out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[115121,9,56,63,65,64,115122],"class_list":["post-303645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-manhattan-arson","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-suny-new-paltz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}