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A man was charged with terrorism after police said he rammed his car into a Las Vegas solar plant and set his car on fire.
Police responded to a call about a trespasser at the Invenergy solar plant north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and when the officers arrived, they found a car ablaze in a generator pit, 8 News Now reports.
Las Vegas Metro police alleged that Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, who was arrested on Thursday 30 miles from the scene, had snuck into the plant and set his Toyota Camry on fire as he sat and watched the blaze.
Mesmarian reportedly told police that he had burned the car at a Tesla plant and that he did it ‘for the future.’
The attack on the Vegas plant comes amid recent attacks on power stations across the US, including on in Washington State that left thousands without power on Christmas Day.
Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, was arrested for allegedly ramming his Toyota Camry in a generator pit and setting it on fire to damage the Invenergy solar plant in Las Vegas
Mesmarian (above) was arrested on Thursday 30 miles from the scene of the crime. Police said he told them he attacked the plant ‘for the future’
Police told 8 News Now that Mesmairian drove his car through the fence of the solar plant after employees had left on Tuesday afternoon.
The man allegedly stayed at the site until midnight, with security cameras catching the moment he set the car on fire inside the generator pit.
Investigators also found an iPhone connected to Mesmarian in the burnt car, along with two laptops. His car was registered in Idaho.
Police eventually located the suspect at a campground at Lake Mead by Boulder City, 30 miles from the solar plant.
Mesmarian faces charges of committing an act of terrorism, arson, destroying personal property and escape by a felony prisoner.
Police said the investigation is ongoing as questions linger over a motive and how Mesmarian ended up so far from the scene of the crime when his car was destroyed.
No one was injured in the accident, but police said that plant had suffered ‘major damage’ that could take up to two years to fix.
The facility currently provides energy to MGM properties in the area.
Pictured: The remains of the suspect’s car at the power station, where employees estimated that it would take two years to undo the damage
Mesmarian’s arrest comes a few days after two men were charged over attacks at four Washington state power substations that left 14,000 people with no power on Christmas Day.
Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40, were arrested Saturday and have been charged with conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of an unregistered firearm.
The duo told investigators that their plan was all in order to steal a cash register at a local business, according to the criminal complaint filed Saturday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington at Tacoma.
After cutting off power to the area – subjecting people to a cold and dark holiday weekend – the men drilled a hole in the lock of a business and stole its cash register.
The overnight attacks on the Pierce County substations cut out power to customers during the holidays and caused about $3 million in damages.
Jeremy Crahan, 40, was one of the two men arrested and charged for attacking Washington state power substations over the holidays
The four power stations in Washington state were attacked within hours on Christmas Day
The four substations that were targeted were the Graham and Elk Plain substations and the Kapowsin and Hemlock substations.
Crahan and Greenwood face up to 20 years in prison for the conspiracy charge and 10 years for possession of an unregistered firearm.
In recent weeks, there have been eight attacks on power stations in Washington and Oregon.
The attacks were preceded by a warning from federal law enforcement of a threat to the local electrical grid.
Deputies in previous weeks have been hesitant to label the attacks as domestic terrorism without suspects having been named.
Many, however, believe that is the case.
Eight attacks targeting power plants have been recorded in Washington and nearby Oregon in recent weeks, leading to them coming under scrutiny by the FBI
In December, Washington state law enforcement sources said they received a memo from the FBI warning them about possible attacks in the area.
Before the Washington attacks, North Carolina experienced a grid attack potentially triggered by opponents of a drag show.
The shooting attack took place in the small town of Southern Pines on December 3 and took out power to more than 40,000 residents.
The Department of Homeland Security officials has warned that extremists have harbored ‘credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020.’
Others have argued that the US power grid – comprising over 7,300 plants and connecting more than 145 million Americans – needs better security to prevent such attacks.
The trope of attacking power infrastructure, the electrical grid or critical infrastructure ‘is an old tenet of the American extreme right-wing,’ said Ali Winston, a journalist who has tracked terrorist threats.
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