Roger Stockham Arrested With Explosives Outside Major U.S. Mosque

DETROIT — A 63-year-old Southern California man who was traveling with explosives in his vehicle with the intention of blowing up one of the nation's largest mosques where mourners had gathered for a funeral was arrested in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan authorities said Sunday.

Dearborn police said Roger Stockham was arraigned Wednesday on one count of making a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possessing explosives with an unlawful intent. Stockham had a large but undisclosed quantity of class-C fireworks including M-80s, which are outlawed in Michigan, Chief Ronald Haddad said.

"I was comfortable with the fact that we had taken him off the street – he isn't going anywhere," Haddad told The Associated Press Sunday afternoon. "I think the society he wanted to impact is safe."

Haddad said Stockham was arrested Monday evening without incident in the parking lot of Islamic Center of America, while a large group was gathered inside. He said police received a 911 call from a resident.

Haddad said authorities believe Stockham was acting alone but still take him "very seriously." He said Stockham has "a long history of anti-government activities," though he declined to elaborate.

The chief said he called the mosque leader, Imam Hassan al-Qazwini, early Tuesday to let him know of the arrest, and later met with Qazwini and mosque board members. He said members shared concerns about copycat crimes if the arrest was publicized, and Haddad said he understood.

"We never want to put something out there that gives someone the 'how-to,'" Haddad said.

Qazwini informed worshippers about the incident during his sermon on Friday. The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Michigan chapter issued a news release Saturday night and the police followed Sunday morning.

Stockham remained jailed Sunday on a $500,000 bond. A preliminary examination is scheduled for Friday.

Police didn't know whether Stockham had an attorney. A public records search did not turn up a listed number for Stockham, though Haddad said he lives in Imperial Beach, near San Diego.

Dearborn, located about 10 miles west of Detroit, is the capital of the Detroit area's Arab-American community, which is one of the largest in the U.S.

Comments

[Talab]

04:27 AM on 03/24/2011

So was he a christian terrorist or a jewish terrorist.... any time a criminal acts who came from an islamic background he is automaticly a muslim terrorist so why didnt they acknowledge his faith in this act too... or doesnt that fit the narative

[European1919]

04:44 AM on 03/24/2011

Of course not forgetting that other question of eminent importance: was he white or black. There must be some way of dragging this into the race arena, too.

[YT87]

11:10 PM on 03/23/2011

Are you guys for real with your "who cares that they were M-80s"?? First of all, M-80s can still seriously maim. Second, won't something exploding outside your place of worship make your life a living hell of fear, whether you're a clergyman or a kid with his parents? Don't we call that terrorism? Third, isn't it his INTENTION that counts, and that scares you? Rockets launched from the Gaza Strip that land harmlessly in the southern Israeli desert are still terrorizing because of the intention. As Americans, we condemn those, then why not this? Finally, I don't get it: either you respect American laws, or you don't. If you don't, then I don't know what you're doing calling out someone else. If you do, then AMERICAN law, via the ATF, has classified M-80s as explosives, and dangerous to both lives and property. Who the heck are you to say any different?

[qzy]

11:38 PM on 03/15/2011

M-80s ? Seriously ? An M-80 can't even blow up an empty coke can. The most damage an M-80 can do is littering, and it's not even good at that. I know the liberals on huffpo are DESPERATE to find some sort of moral or behavioral equivalence, but you're going to have to try harder that this.

[LALC]

10:42 AM on 03/21/2011

I'm thinking the same thing. Imagine the damage he the could NOT do to a building that size? Maybe black s[pots on the concrete.

[NadineColbert]

12:57 PM on 03/24/2011

He had a trunk full, and the car has a tank of gas.
Your comment is ignorant!

[European1919]

07:27 AM on 03/10/2011

Fireworks would indeed be a "false report or threat of terrorism".
And wanting to blow up a mosque is considered an anti-govt. activity.

[LeftySansPancho]

03:04 PM on 03/01/2011

Why is Stockham's act not on the front page of every paper and site?

Simple - because he was planning to bomb a mosque, not a church.

Does anyone really believe that if someone was arrested lurking around a church with a vehicle full of explosives, it would be buried on Page 39 or whatever the online equivalent is? No, it would be the day's most blaring headline, and Fox's talking heads would be screaming till the veins pop from their foreheads about the poor poor persecuted Christians in America.

But blowing up a mosque? No big deal.

[loOranks]

12:35 PM on 03/21/2011

Blowing a mosque that large with fireworks??

[Crazeden Diffused]

05:58 PM on 02/07/2011

Roger Stockham was a convert to Islam. Did anyone note that? He was a Sunni and the mosque was Shia. I read he rejected his Shia lawyer.

[Stanislav Sharovskiy]

10:02 AM on 02/06/2011

A Sunni Muslim attempting to kill Shia Muslims. I know, loyal Huffies, Islam is a religion of peace.
The cognitive dissonance must be killing all of you.

[LeftySansPancho]

03:01 PM on 03/01/2011

Oh, puh-leaze. Jesus is known as the "Prince of Peace" and directed his followers to turn the other cheek, love their enemies, and love thy neighbor as yourself, but that has never stopped Christian fanatics from murdering to advance their cause. Ever read the Old Testament? How many times did "God" supposedly direct his followers to kill all of the men in town and take the women and children as slaves? Christian violence is as old as the Crusades, and as recent as Timothy McVeigh. Oh wait, more recent - I forgot that guy who went to his local church and shot everyone he could shoot because he claimed they were tolerant of homosexuality.

Islam is not the problem. Fundamentalists are the problem. They are found in every religion.

[Stanislav Sharovskiy]

04:58 PM on 03/10/2011

"Islam is not the problem. Fundamentalists are the problem. They are found in every religion."

One wonders what ground these ISLAMIC fundamentalists would stand upon as the source of their fundamentalism, if not ISLAM.

I suspect that the definition of FUNDAMENTALISM has escaped many:

Fundamentalism: (1) "The tendency to reduce a religion to its most fundamental tenets, based on strict interpretation of core texts." (2) "a belief in a strict adherence to a set of basic principles."

Islamic Fundamentalism is problematic precisely because the fundamentals of Islam are problematic. The degree of harm resulting from a fundamentalist, ultimately and invariably, depends upon the fundamentals of their respective religions. A Jain fundamentalist (who believe no living thing should be killed) is not nearly so atrocious as a Muslim one, who likely believes that all non-Muslims are inferior and deserving of death or subjugation.

It is ridiculous to blame FUNDAMENTALISTS but to insist on the same hand that the FUNDAMENTALS of the RELIGION are irrelevant.

[dbrett480]

08:26 PM on 02/02/2011

Good arrest.

[Doug Sandlin]

03:51 PM on 02/01/2011

It's interesting - some people seem to think Stockham's status as a Muslim, or not, or an anti-Muslim, or whatever, makes a difference.

I'd like to suggest that it doesn't; here's why:

Stockham was inspired to violence, for a combination of reasons, some of them his own ... but the idea of violence against Muslims, and against a mosque in Dearborn, Michigan specifically, was obviously influenced by someone other than himself.

Anyone who would directly or indirectly inspire terrorist activity, whether non-Muslim Anti-Muslims ("Muslims are bad") or Muslim anti-Muslims ("Muslims who are not us are bad") .... is a criminal, and a fool.

And so, Stockman is an unstable man, influenced by criminal fools.

The only question seems to be: was it "our" criminal fools, or "their" criminal fools?

Since criminal fools are never representative of the main groups in question (Americans, Muslims, American-Muslims, Veterans, whatever) ... I'd suggest it really doesn't matter which criminal fools influenced Stockham.

The criminal foolishness will likely continue, and the susceptible will likely do foolish things as a result.

[DoinMyHomework]

05:22 PM on 02/01/2011

stockham is only mocking muslimms at best, and at worst, trying to blame them for his own actions.

its just a well promoted talking point from the teaparty, that he 'self identified' as a muslimm.

its an attempt to deflect from making the connection that Angle declared Dearborn to be under sharia law..

and now we have another ginned up crackpot

[Crazeden Diffused]

07:38 PM on 02/07/2011

Your lucky the moderator is protecting your nonsense from my comments. They only selected the one ignorant of other comments here. I was already warned about this place but this story intrigued me.

[Big Ol Meany]

10:47 AM on 02/01/2011

Just wondering where the HP article and post is on another failed attempt at mass murder, the perp is named Martin Calvin Yarbrough, Jr. Oh, probably not on here because he doesn't fit the mold of bad guys HP has.

[Mark Webber]

08:32 AM on 02/01/2011

The link has a very interesting and expressive picture says it all.

[Kent Harper]

01:25 AM on 02/01/2011

I know Roger Stockham, I served with him in Vietnam in 1969. Roger is a troubled person, some people handle war better than others. Roger did not handle it well and has paid for it his whole life. He is bi-polar, has PTSD, and a personality disorder. These things make him make BAD DECISIONS. I saw him this summer and spoke to him on the phone the day before he was arrested. He said he was taking a trip to visit some old friends. When he needed help it wasn't there and now another bad decision. I would guess he is off his meds or ran out. he acts just like everyone else when he stayed on his meds.

He's not a muslim or a terroist, he's another vet the country used up and then threw away. Some of these comments are pretty cruel, try putting yourself in his shoes, but then you'd need to be bi-polar, have PTSD, and have a personality disorder and have your country shit on you for 40 years first.

[Crazeden Diffused]

11:56 PM on 02/07/2011

Link us all to some semblance of proof teabaggers want and support violence. You are the one attempting to insight violence against people that are demanding laws be enforced and the Constitution be upheld. Muslim Stockham is just sick? Agree! But if he had been a sick teabagger you would portray him as poster boy of a violent grass root movement.

Makes us angry as hell just as you hope to do when you lie and insight anger and division against us in accusing us of your own actions.

[Tom Harding]

12:07 PM on 02/07/2011

Kent,

Did he mention passing through Santa Fe on his way to Michigan?
He was in Santa Fe, NM around the 10th of January.
I met him and he seemed a bit mysterious.
I work at a hostel in Santa Fe and I checked him in when he arrived.
You are right about his running out of meds; a few days after he checked out a box that rattled came for him. I assume it was his meds. It sat here waiting for him until we heard the news now it's marked return to sender and on it's way back to wherever it came from.

Did you talk to him on the 11th? I remember him having a conversation on his cell phone in the lobby area on that date.

TGH

[The Knocker]

10:54 PM on 01/31/2011

Stockham told police his hero is Timothy McVeigh and was wearing a tea-party cap when he was arrested. Above-all , why is his word accepted as the truth that he is a Muslim when he is suffreing from bi-polar disorder.
When Jared Loughner commit his shooting spree against innocence civilians the media as whole never called him a terrorist, even though he was never diagnose with mental illness.
Below is the Imam of the mosque talking about this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if9LgARS5MM

[Kalel]

10:50 PM on 01/31/2011

That's funny... A man can damn near blow up a Mosque with minimal news coverage. Try to build a Mosque and it's news for weeks.

[Rachelvis]

12:09 PM on 02/01/2011

HONESTLY what do Jews have to do with anything?

[FTracy3]

02:10 PM on 02/01/2011

Just a wee bit antisemitic, are we?

[Kaila]

01:08 AM on 02/01/2011

"damn near blow up a Mosque"
they found bottle rockets in the back of his car.

I think it's profiling to say that Roger Stockham was trying to cause a massive explosion just because he was a Muslim.

[Azfar Ali]

02:57 AM on 02/01/2011

m80s are not bottle rockets and as far as not publicizing it because of "copycat" crimes, come on now this isn't the first time a mosque has been targeted...pretty lame excuse to sweep this news under the rug.

[Puncastle]

03:42 AM on 02/01/2011

And he was not a Muslim.

[gogojuice]

09:35 PM on 01/31/2011

1977 - armed with a handgun and a bomb, he took a California psychiatrist hostage for four hours.

1979 - he took his 9-year-old son from a foster home without permission, rented a plane and took off into the California sky. He called the Los Angeles air control tower, said he had explosives in the plane and wanted a larger aircraft to fly to Iran.

Out on bail, he set several oil tanks ablaze in Lompoc, Calif. Police said one fire was set off by a rifle bullet that ignited a package of gunpowder placed near the tanks.

1985 - he called the Gazette-Journal several times about the bomb he had planted at the city airport. He was later convicted of that crime and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison

Sept. 11, 2001, he had left a message at the Free Press: "You must now begin the process of learning how to recognize when you are speaking to a representative of the Islamic Jihad." He was a Muslim, he said, having been converted when he was in Indonesia in the 1970s in "prison,"

October 2002 -arrested in Colchester and accused of making threats to veterans offices. He claimed his minivan was filled with explosives, and had sent obscenity-filled letters to the VA office in South Burlington

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110131/NEWS02/110131011/Michigan-mosque-bomb-suspect-once-faced-threat-charges-in-Vermont

[Nick Santiago]

07:35 AM on 02/01/2011

My first thought after reading your post is, what the heck is this guy doing running around free? He obviously should have been locked up for good a long time ago.

[European1919]

07:30 AM on 03/10/2011

Quite a party animal, eh?