The ATF is investigating whether a fire yesterday at the site of the construction of a new mosque in Murfreesboro, TN, was intentionally set.

Late Update: The local sheriff is treating it as an arson. While the ATF hasn’t ruled it an arson yet, an ATF spokesperson tells CBS News that gasoline was poured over construction equipment to start the fire.

In recent weeks we’ve been covering the controversy over a proposed Muslim community center in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, which has been pulled into several local and statewide political campaigns. Now the ATF and FBI are investigating a suspicious fire and vandalism that occurred at the construction site Saturday morning.

From the Tennesseean …

ATF and FBI agents are investigating a Saturday morning fire that damaged four pieces of equipment and could halt construction at the site of the planned Islamic center and mosque just outside Murfreesboro.

Eric Kehn, spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said his agency has not deemed the burning of an excavation hauler as arson. He did confirm that three other pieces of equipment were damaged, but he would not comment on the extent of the damage.

“Any type of activity like this we take very seriously and we look into,” Kehn said. “When things like this happen, we really need the help of the public.”

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The reports are too sketchy to jump to conclusions. But police are now investigating reports of gunfire near the Mosque/Community Center construction in Murfreesboro, Tennesse while members of the congregation inspected apparent acts of arson and vandalism at the site from the night before.

I’ve seen a number of stories and comments over the last couple days suggesting that our society and politics is more polarized today than at any time in recent memory or perhaps even at any time in American history. But while these are pretty curdled times we’re living in, that seems like a dramatic overstatement. The late 1960s come to mind as a real contender in the polarization department. But I do not know that you need to go back that far. I would just look back to the early and middle 1990s. Apropos of that, I was just looking up the 1993 movie Falling Down, which seemed to prefigure what was coming down the pike politically in 1994.

I was just looking at this piece in a local paper about the as-yet-unconfirmed report of gunshots being fired at a mosque construction site in Murfreesboro when members of the congregation were inspecting damage from suspected arson-vandalism the night before.

Here’s one of the comments …

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