ANDY NGO REPORTS: Anti-ICE firebomber charged over attack on Los Angeles federal building

LOS ANGELES — Federal prosecutors in California have charged a 54-year-old man on Monday after he allegedly hurled multiple Molotov cocktails into a downtown federal building in an attack targeting immigration officials.

A criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday names the suspect as Los Angeles resident, Jose Francisco Jovel. He has been charged with attempted malicious damage to federal property.

According to prosecutors, on Monday morning, Jovel allegedly first set fire to his own apartment in Koreatown before arriving at the Federal Building in downtown. He was recorded on CCTV footage carrying multiple bags. He then allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail through an open sliding door marked for employees. A second incendiary device was thrown minutes later through the building’s public entrance, where people were waiting for a security screening. 

The devices failed to ignite and there were no injuries. Agents found a lighter and at least five additional Molotov-style bottles in Jovel’s possession when they arrested him. He allegedly shouted, “You’re separating families” and characterized his actions as a “terrorist attack.”

The improvised explosive devices

“This case exemplifies how misleading and hateful rhetoric against federal law enforcement can and does result in violence,” said Bill Essayli, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California. 

The federal building that was attacked is the same building that open-border rioters and Mexican nationalists violently attacked in the summer. The riots featured arson attacks and federal law enforcement being assaulted by rioters hurling concrete chunks while waving Mexican flags. 

If convicted, Jovel could face up to 20 years in federal prison. 

This attack follows a string of violent and deadly incidents against federal immigration-enforcement facilities nationwide. In July, the Prairieland immigration facility near Fort Worth was shot up by a North Texas Antifa cell. At least five members of the Antifa group have pleaded guilty in federal court to providing material support to terrorists. They admitted to carrying out the attack, which resulted in an officer being shot in the neck, for the Antifa ideology. 

In September, Joshua Jahn fired sniper rounds at an ICE facility in Dallas, but failed to hit federal agents as his intended targets and instead shot three migrants. Two of the migrants died. Jahn shot himself dead before he could be apprehended. He left behind an anti-ICE message on the rifle cartridges.

Jovel is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.