‘I’m going to kill so many people’: Valley City man charged in mass shooting plot at Lorain County mosque

CLEVELAND, Ohio — A Valley City man who authorities say idolized Nazis and a mass shooter and hated Muslims is charged in connection with a plot to carry out a mass shooting at a Columbia Station mosque.Wyatt Brzoska, 20, surveilled the Ummah Center mosque and school, “assembled an arsenal” and planned to kill more people than the 51 people his idol — Christchurch, New Zealand, mass shooter Brenton Tarrant — killed at two mosques in 2019, federal prosecutors say.Prosecutors say the FBI thwarted the attack by arresting Brzoska in March, shortly before a planned event at the center during the holy month of Ramadan. The FBI learned of Brzoska’s plot after he posted a series of increasingly violent videos on social media, including one that showed him outside the center with a caption that read: “You will feel it,” according to prosecutors.Prosecutors on Wednesday charged Brzoska in federal court in Cleveland with three counts of threatening communications. The charges were filed by way of information, meaning Brzoska agreed to skip grand jury proceedings, which typically means a defendant intends to plead guilty in the case.An arraignment is set for Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Bridget Brennan. Brzoska’s attorney, Daniel Misiewicz, declined comment. The Council on American-Islamic Relations North Executive Director Fateh Ode, in a statement Thursday, praised law enforcement for the arrest. He also urged prosecutors to consider more serious charges against Brzoska, including conspiracy to commit murder. “What could have happened could have been a catastrophic, horrific slaughter of men, women and children, of innocent worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan,” Ode’s statement said. “While we are relieved that federal law enforcement intervened before tragic loss of life occurred, our community continues to process the fear and trauma caused by these explicit threats.”Court records do not explicitly name the mosque and school targeted by Brzoska. But a court filing by prosecutors includes a photo they say Brzoska took showing him outside the Ummah Center on Royalton Road. Messages left at center were not returned.‘A joke’Brzoska had been on law enforcement’s radar for months, beginning in November 2025, when prosecutors say he posted a video on TikTok that referenced a threat of a mass shooting at a mosque.Brzoska told Medina County sheriff’s deputies who interviewed him that the video was a “joke,” that he was trying to upset people and get a reaction, according to court records. He showed deputies that a gun seen in the post was actually a BB gun and said he didn’t own any guns, court records say.He posted two videos shortly after, on Nov. 23 and Nov. 24, including one that showed an AI-generated man dancing in tactical gear with the symbol of the Black Sun in the background, a symbol originally used by Nazis and now used by far-right groups, according to prosecutors.The second video, recorded at the Tractor Supply Co. where he worked, referenced Tarrant, used anti-Muslim slurs and said “For this thanksgiving I’m thinking instead of turkey I’m going to kill 51” Muslims, according to court records. A song playing in the background of the video was the same song that Tarrant listened to in his car before the 2019 attack, according to court records.He also included the hashtag “tcc,” which FBI agents wrote means “true crime community” and in recent years has been used by a community that “worships and admires” mass shooters.Brzoska told FBI agents on Nov. 26 that he posted the videos and again said it was a joke that he thought was funny, according to court records.He said a group of Muslims online angered him as a Christian, admitted to not liking Muslims and said he was in therapy getting ketamine treatments. After FBI agents spoke to Brzoska’s mother, he said he owned an AR-15 rifle, two shotguns and another rifle. He told the agents that he didn’t have a lot of ammunition because it was expensive, according to court records.‘You will feel it’In March, someone tipped off the FBI about an increasingly frequent string of videos Brzoska posted on TikTok.One showed him wearing tactical gear and a skull mask and using a coded reference to Tarrant. Another included photos of three World War II-era Nazi helmets and a caption asking which one he should use, leading investigators to believe he was asking which helmet he should use while carrying out an attack, similar to other mass shooters, according to court filings.On March 10, he drove to the Ummah Center wearing military fatigues, zoomed in on the building and posted the video with a caption: “You will feel it.”Two days later, he posted 12 more videos to his public TikTok, including four of a video game in which a character walks around and shoots people. Another video showed a photo of Brzoska and Tarrant that switched back and forth so quickly it appeared the two were blurring together into one person, according to court records.In another video, investigators reported seeing two rifles in Brzoska’s bedroom. Other videos included audio of a 911 call with a woman reporting seeing a man with a gun and then gunfire, and one of him crouching and holding a long gun with the caption: “FORWARD THE PURIFICATION,” according to court records.In the final public video, he said: “No one around you understands you or anything that you’re fighting for. No one around you cares. They don’t care. You go around day by day—day to day to day to day—walking and living in this skin suit. That’s not really your body, and it gets to a point where, I dunno, 18 years, 19 years, 20 years! You can’t take it anymore. You need to let go.”In private videos he posted to TikTok the next day, he wore a tactical vest with a loaded rifle, gave a Nazi salute and said: “Y’all need try to understand something, under one nation, under one race, and under one religion, we are united against all mongrels, all dogs, and all lesser beings! White power!”‘I’m going to kill so many’Around the same time, Brzoska was messaging on TikTok with a 15-year-old girl from Utah, often using white supremacist language. The messages, recovered by FBI agents, showed the two talked extensively about carrying out the mass shooting at the mosque, court records say.He texted the girl about getting propane and ammunition, blocking the back door to the mosque and conducting surveillance on the building, court records say. He also talked about “hunting” people down at their homes and taking his own life after killing as many people as possible, court records say.In one message, he said: “Life is never gonna Make opportunities or get better for me I’ve already had to sit in the s--t I’ve been rotting in for years I’m not gonna waste away and rot while everyone points and laughs and leaves me behind I’m gonna burn myself clean in fire and be alive one last time, and let my soul and hate hang over this town forever like a black cloud. There all gonna feel me. And see me. There gonna watch as I choose to be righteous as I am righteous as I burn and pick the meak from the heard of cattle.”He told the girl that he sees the Ummah Center nearly every day.“It f-----g haunts me like a demon the damn structure,” he wrote, according to court filings. “Everyday I have to pass it. And breathe in the waste. Where a beautiful church could be in a nice mid west rural neighborhood instead there’s a f-----g mosque. Filled with them you never even see a single white.”In another message to the girl, he said he was going to “kill so many” people.“And make them all suffer,” he wrote. “So f----g bad. Worse than me. And I’m gonn laugh. Laugh as there dying. And I’m gonna cry. I know you will and I’m sorry it has to be soon. Cry when it’s over.”The 15-year-old girl told FBI agents that she called Brzoska and told him not to carry out the shooting because she didn’t want him to die or end up in prison, according to court filings.She also said Brzoska talked about shooting his neighbors, that he bought guns for the attack and that his goal was to kill more people than Tarrant.700 bulletsFBI agents on March 14 arrested Brzoska at the Tractor Supply Co. while he was working. He denied planning an attack, then told agents that all the posts were a joke, but wanted viewers to be scared, prosecutors wrote in court filings.Agents raided his home the same day and found 10 loaded guns — five pistols, three rifles and two shotguns — about 700 bullets, knives, tactical vests, gloves and a mask, according to court records. Nazi symbols, like SS, were etched into one of the rifles, according to court records.Prosecutors say that while Brzoska was being driven to his initial court appearance two days later, he admitted that he wanted to kill more people than Tarrant and admitted to buying guns by ordering them online and having them delivered to a nearby gun store.“Brzoska was in the midst of preparing to commit a mass shooting targeting Muslims at a local mosque when he was arrested,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Shepherd wrote in court filings. “Had he not been arrested, he could have committed an unspeakable atrocity... He has done more than just fantasize. He collected an arsenal of weapons and ammunition; he identified a target; he conducted research online about the target; and he conducted surveillance of his target. These actions go beyond mere video game fantasies.”