Police Car Firebombed In Front Of Daytona Beach Mosque: BLM Implicated, Police Chief Not Convinced [Updated]

A Daytona Beach Police car outside of a mosque was firebombed earlier today, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The police say that this may be the result of anti-police backlash in the wake of the recent deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling.

The police say that the incident took place at about 2 a.m. when an unoccupied marked squad car parked outside the Islamic Center of Daytona Beach at 347 S. Keech St. was struck by a currently unidentified incendiary device, but Police Chief Mike Chitwood said that he suspects that a Molotov cocktail was thrown. The vehicle was engulfed and completely destroyed — according to Chitwood, the damages total more than $20,000.

As per a story from Quartz, Rev. Jesse Jackson called for reconciliation on Friday (at Alton Sterling’s funeral) between police and the public after the rash of revenge killings of police in Dallas, Texas, and earlier today in Baton Rouge, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

“Our strongest weapon is not guns and violence; it is the rightness of our cause.

“Pain abounded, but hope must abound even more. The best can be ahead of us. This is a transformative moment. We must choose reconciliation and retaliation over revenge.”

Unfortunately, it appears that someone wasn’t listening to Rev. Jackson’s speech, as the Daytona Police Cruiser also bore a note implicating Black Lives Matter in the attack.

“Black lives Matter. A. Sterling P. Castile. [Expletive] the police.”

And while it is unlikely that identified members of Black Lives Matter were actually responsible for the firebomb, this attack isn’t going to help matters on either side.

It also remains unclear how the apparently-legible note was retrieved from the inferno intact when the car was completely destroyed.

Update no. 1: Police have now clarified that the note was left near, not on, the vehicle.

A local resident who asked to remain anonymous said that by the time the fire trucks arrived, the car was already fully engulfed.

“We were in bed and I heard a ‘boom’ noise. It sounded like a window being broken and I thought it could be someone trying to break into my boyfriend’s car. So I looked out the window and didn’t see anyone near his car then I looked left and saw the police car was on fire,” the person wrote. “The police car has been parked there since the Orlando shootings. They move it every now and then but it’s always empty. My boyfriend called 911 and it took so long before they got there that by the time they did the entire car was covered in fire. It took a bit to get the fire out.”

Chief Chitwood said that the police had been stationing a patrol car near the Islamic Center regularly, following the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando on June 12. The chief was concerned that the mosque might end up the target of anti-Islamic backlash against the attack.

Chitwood said that, if apprehended, the suspect would be facing both arson and damage to a police vehicle charges – and that he remained unconvinced that this was the work of anti-police protesters. Police are presently investigating the incident, and detectives are reviewing security camera footage of the scene.

“I really do believe in my heart of hearts that we have a really great rapport with our community overall. They know that if there’s a problem, they can come and talk to us. But there is a radical, small percentage that I think is trying to drive a wedge between all of us.

If you notice what’s going on in America today, it’s like they’re taking a page out of ISIS. Find the disenfranchised folks that don’t want to fix things the right way, and have them be fanatical in their attacks. And it’s sad. Certainly not the world I want my grandkids to grow up in.”

[Photo via Daytona Beach Police Department handout]