Jackie Rahm Little, aka Joel Arthur Tueting, has been arrested and charged in a federal criminal complaint with arson following fires at two Minneapolis mosques, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.
Little was apprehended and arrested Saturday night in Mankato by the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office and taken into federal custody today by FBI and ATF agents, with assistance from the Minneapolis and St. Paul Police Departments.
According to court documents, on April 23, 2023, at approximately 7:00 p.m., Little, 36, started a fire in the bathroom of the Masjid Omar Islamic Center. On April 24, 2023, just before 7:00 p.m., Little was captured on surveillance video entering the Masjid Al Rahma Mosque. Shortly thereafter, a fire broke out on the third floor of the mosque and the building was evacuated.
According to court documents, prior to the arson incidents, on January 5, 2023, Little was captured on surveillance video entering the Minneapolis district office of a U.S. Representative. Little spray-painted the text “500” on the front door of the U.S. Representative’s office and photographed the graffiti. Later that same day, Little spray-painted the same text (“500”) on the side of a patrol vehicle assigned to a Somali Minneapolis Police Department officer as well as in an entryway at a marketplace, colloquially referred to as the “Somali Mall.”
Little will make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court before Magistrate Judge Cowan Wright on Monday, May 1, 2023.
This case is the result of an investigation conducted by the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Minneapolis Police Department, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office, and the St. Paul Police Department, with assistance from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights and National Security Divisions, and the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Manda M. Sertich is prosecuting the case.
