The New York church firebombing suspect was an illegal alien with pending cases involving armed threats and a prior firebombing, and is also a suspect in at least seven other arson investigations. He was arrested twice in June on the armed threat charges, then released under Zohran Mamdani’s anti-law enforcement policies, compounded by his refusal to cooperate with ICE. Yogesh Sayrange, 36, was arrested Thursday after allegedly throwing Molotov cocktails at two Queens churches and an ambulette company late Wednesday night, according to the NYPD. Sayrange targeted Iglesia Bautista El Mesias Baptist Church in Ozone Park just before midnight, where surveillance video showed him speaking with three men before lighting a Molotov cocktail and throwing it over the front gate toward the entrance.
Sayrange then walked less than a mile to a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, where he allegedly threw a second Molotov cocktail at the front entrance at 12:08 a.m. Thursday. Investigators determined he also threw a third Molotov cocktail at the Exclusive Ambulette Service Transportation Corp. Officers arrested Sayrange at a nearby deli at approximately 12:10 a.m. Thursday and recovered two additional Molotov cocktails from his backpack. According to prosecutors, he told investigators, “I had two more in my bag. I was going to finish the job.”
