Police have arrested an 18-year-old after a vacant mosque in Bellevue caught fire for the second time in a little over a year.
Investigators with the Bellevue Police Department say they reviewed traffic camera footage and identified five individuals running from the mosque about four minutes before the fire started.
After interviewing the individuals, police say the primary suspect believed to have started the fire, an 18-year-old Bellevue resident, was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for first-degree arson.
Police say investigators do not believe that a fire was a hate crime.
Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett told a community meeting Saturday that those involved will be brought to justice, but he said there's nothing to indicate that the blaze was started as a result of hate or bias toward the Muslim community.
Mylett says investigators found mattresses, pizza boxes and other debris inside the building, which was still closed from a fire last year.
"They could have been starting a fire to cook. It could have been that they were messing around with matches and it got out of hand. Either way, it's a crime, and we will bring these people to justice because gotta figure out which crime occurred," said Mylett.
Wednesday's blaze comes after a homeless man set the mosque on fire in January 2017.
