Joe Nahhas: A worker at J.S. Fields, a bar and grill near the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, contacted authorities after being alerted to Roger Stockham's unusual behavior and talking with him on Jan. 24. / MANDI WRIGHT/Detroit Free Press
By ELISHA ANDERSON and TRESA BALDAS
Detroit Free Press Staff Writers
- Filed Under
- Local News
- Metro Detroit
Islamic Center of America: Police said they found Stockham near the Dearborn mosque. He had high-end fireworks on him, they said. / ANDRE J. JACKSON/Detroit Free Press
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High-end fireworks might have injured some people or damaged some property, but it's highly unlikely they could have destroyed an entire mosque.
That's what firearms experts concluded Monday following the arrest of Roger Stockham, 63, who on Jan. 24 was picked up by police outside the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn and charged with plotting to blow up the building.
Police said when they found him, he was wearing a black ski mask and had spray paint and more than two dozen high-end fireworks on him, including M-80s.
"I wouldn't expect that they'd be able to level a building," said Donald Dawkins, spokesman for the Detroit office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Fire experts noted, though, that M-80s are very dangerous.
"We've had people blow their fingers off," Detroit senior fire prevention inspector Capt. Steven Hurst said. He usually deals with M-80s around the Fourth of July, when he seizes them because they aren't allowed in Michigan.
The amount of damage an M-80 can do depends on how and where it's placed. But a single M-80 isn't going to blow up a building, he said. Hurst said he doesn't know how many it would take to level one.
Police said Stockham, who had driven to metro Detroit from California, was caught with the explosives after Joe Nahhas, a Detroit bar employee, called police with concerns that Stockham was going to commit a terrorist attack. Nahhas said Stockham came into his bar and told him there would be an explosion that night.
"Take my word, he was serious about what he said," Nahhas said. "When someone is joking, you know that he's joking. This guy was not joking."
It wasn't Stockham's first run-in with the law. Court records show he has a lengthy rap sheet and a history of mental illness.
Documents filed with 19th District Court in Dearborn call Stockham a habitual offender. In December 1979, he was convicted of what the documents refer to as child stealing in California. In 1986, he was convicted of attempting to damage a building, also in California.
According to federal court records in Vermont, Stockham pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to eight threat charges in the early 2000s, including threats to then-President George W. Bush. In that same report, documents prepared by the Federal Bureau of Prisons described Stockham as having bipolar disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder and a personality disorder.
"He is a Viet Nam veteran with a history of volatile threatening behavior, very angry at various persons and the United States generally," the government wrote.
His troubled past caught up with him again in Michigan when authorities found him near the mosque in Dearborn, taking photos of it last week.
He was arrested and charged with one count of threat of terrorism and one count of possessing explosives with unlawful intent. He is being held on $500,000 bond in the Wayne County Jail. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison on the terrorism charge and 15 years on the explosives charge.
A preliminary examination is set for Friday, police said.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misidentified Joe Nahhas as the owner of J.S. Fields. Gerald Attee is the owner and Nahhas is the operations manager.
