The FBI has arrested the man who drove his truck into a mosque near the Florida State University campus earlier this week.
Charles Franklin, 41, is being held in the Leon County Jail and is expected to appear in federal court this morning. He has not yet been officially charged but was arrested based on "probable cause," according to an FBI spokesman.
"There's a federal interest in this matter ... a civil rights interest," said Special Agent Bill Hurlburt, with the FBI's Jacksonville office.
Tallahassee police arrested Franklin late Monday at a West Tennessee Street bar where he'd walked to after allegedly ramming his GMC pickup into the front of the Islamic Center of Tallahassee. He told investigators he did it as a statement to all Muslims that they should leave the country, according to his arrest report.
Leon County Circuit Judge Judith Hawkins released him from the jail pending trial. He reportedly was checked into the psychiatric ward at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital after his release, but that could not be confirmed.
Hurlburt said late Wednesday he was unsure where agents found Franklin. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office did not provide information after a request from the Tallahassee Democrat.
The Tallahassee carpenter has a history of strange behavior, most of it connected to the FSU campus, and is a frequent letter-writer to the Tallahassee Democrat on the issue of Israeli-Palestinian relations.
In 1992, he talked his way into the studios of V89, FSU's radio station, and smashed the controls in the DJ booth with a pipe. He was sentenced to 10 years probation but was released in early 2001.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he wrote in a letter published in the Democrat that "the violence must end, but American flower power will not soften the hearts of militant Muslims. Until all of Abraham's descendants learn to live as brothers in the tiny land that they all cherish, the hawk will continue to circle and the dove will be put to flight."
Hazim Mohammed, president of the mosque, planned to attend today's hearing in federal court with others from the Islamic Center.
"We're glad that he is still in custody," Mohammed said late Wednesday. "They did not just totally release him."