Gunman kills 4 Marines; Shooter killed, 3 wounded in Chattanooga

Published 9:26 am Friday, July 17, 2015

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. — A gunman unleashed a barrage of fire at a recruiting center and another U.S. military site a few miles apart in Chattanooga on Thursday, killing at least four Marines before he was shot to death by police, and sending service members scrambling for cover as bullets smashed through the windows.

Federal authorities said they were investigating the possibility it was an act of terrorism, but have no evidence yet that anyone but a lone gunman was involved. They also said there was no indication that the general public was in danger. The FBI has taken charge of the case.

Authorities identified the gunman as Kuwait-born Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, 24, of Hixson, Tennessee, though the spelling of his first name was in dispute, with federal officials and records giving at least four variations.

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A U.S. official said there was no indication Abdulazeez was on the radar of federal law enforcement before the shootings. The official was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The shootings took place minutes apart, with the gunman stopping his car and spraying dozens of bullets first at a recruiting center for all branches of the military, then apparently driving to a Navy-Marine training center 7 miles away, authorities and witnesses said. The attacks were over within a half-hour.

The shooter fired at the recruitment center from inside his car, but then got out of the vehicle to shoot the four marines at the training center, FBI agent Ed Reinhold told a news conference late Thursday.

In addition to the Marines killed, three people were reported wounded, including a sailor who was seriously hurt.

“Lives have been lost from some faithful people who have been serving our country, and I think I join all Tennesseans in being both sickened and saddened by this,” Gov. Bill Haslam said.

Authorities would not say how the gunman died, but the U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said investigators believe Chattanooga police fired the fatal shot that killed him. At least one military commander at the scene also fired at the gunman with his personal weapon, but forensic investigators determined that police killed him, the official said.

Reinhold said Abdulazeez had “numerous weapons” but would not give details. He said investigators have “no idea” what motivated the shooter, but “we are looking at every possible avenue, whether it was terrorism, whether it’s domestic, international, or whether it was a simple criminal act.”

Reinhold also told a news conference late Thursday that “there is no indication at this point that anybody else was involved.”

“Obviously, we’re still at the beginning of this investigation,” he said. “We will explore any possibility and that includes whether or not anyone else was involved.”

U.S. Attorney Bill Killian told the news conference that “as far as we know at this juncture, there are no safety concerns for the general public.”

Within hours of the bloodshed, law officers with guns drawn swarmed what was believed to be Abdulazeez’s house, and two females were led away in handcuffs.

A dozen law enforcement vehicles, including a bomb-squad truck and an open-sided Army green truck carrying armed men, rolled into the Hixson neighborhood, and police closed off streets and turned away people trying to reach their homes.

Abdulazeez graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2012 with a bachelor’s in electrical engineering and was a student intern a few years ago at the Tennessee Valley Authority, the federally owned utility that operates power plants and dams across the South.

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said it has seen nothing so far to connect Abdulazeez to any terrorist organization, but intelligence officials are monitoring the investigation closely. The Islamic State group has been encouraging extremists to carry out attacks in the U.S., and several such homegrown acts or plots have unfolded in recent months.