Surveillance video shows suspect vandalizing a Colorado mosque

Police have arrested a suspect in connection with the vandalism at a mosque near Colorado State University, a case they are investigating as a hate crime.
Joseph Scott Giaquinto, 35, was arrested on suspicion of several charges, including a crime motivated by bias, after he allegedly overturned benches, broke windows and threw a Bible into the Islamic Center of Fort Collins.
Giaquinto lives across the street from the center, and is a former army combat medic who served for eight years in several middle eastern countries including Iraq and Baghdad.
Police had asked for the public's help in the case, and released surveillance footage of the crime in the hopes of identifying Giaquinto.
His father Michael told the Coloradoan that he noticed his son sometimes being gloomy and moody, and that he had been raised in a Christian household.
He said: 'No matter what we find out happened, my son is a good man,'
'He served his country well. Even if he was involved, and I'm not saying he was, it would just indicate that he was in a kind of a bad place.'
In one of the video clips, a man wearing a hoodie, initially believed to be in his late teens or early 20s, is shown picking up a paving stone and walking away. In another clip, he kicks a door.
A police spokeswoman said that she did not have details on how police came to identify Giaquinto as the suspect.
The Islamic Center's president, Tawfik Aboellail, said the man tried to break into the mosque about 4 a.m. Sunday, but he did not get inside.
The arrest brings slight comfort to the community, who are still rattled by the act.
'There is a better sense of security, but we are not out of the woods yet,' Aboellail said.
The vandalism prompted the center to cancel religious classes for children that morning, but also led to an outpouring of support from other Fort Collins residents.
Congregants from Plymouth Congregational Church visited after their morning service, and later about 1,000 people gathered at the mosque for a rally of support organized by a rabbi Sunday evening.
Many have also been making donations on GoFundMe titled 'Protect Our Religious Spaces' to pay for repairs and improved security at the center.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged police to investigate the case as a possible hate crime.
This latest act against a house of Muslim worship comes after the organization reported 33 threats, vandalizations or acts of arson targeting a mosque having occurred between January 1 and March 20, 2017.
Over the same time period in 2016, CAIR reported 19 similar incidents.
In a forthcoming report conducted by the organization, figures are expected to show a 40 percent increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes from 2015 to 2016, and a more than 50 percent increase in more general acts of anti-Muslim bias.
Police Chief John Hutto, who attended the support rally, said the incident has a 'very real impact on our Muslim friends and neighbors.'
'The criminal act against their sacred space is unacceptable,' he said in a statement.
US Representative for the 2nd District of Colorado Jared Polis tweeted a few hours later: 'The vandalism that occurred at the Islamic Center in Fort Collins is unacceptable. It's time for us to stand in unity. These acts must end.'
The vandalism comes about a month after someone threw a rock through a window at a mosque in the Denver area. The incident at the Colorado Muslim Society was also captured on surveillance video, but no one has been arrested.
Investigators in the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office have exhausted their leads, spokeswoman Julie Brooks said Monday.