Abdulazeez is being classified as a “homegrown violent extremist”, though it’s too early to determine whether he had been “radicalized”, said Reinhold.
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The entire active shooter incident only lasted 3 – 5 minutes once Abdulazeez entered the Amnicola complex. Crowds gathered at the suburban Atlanta high school to remember the Marine who was fatally shot in an attack on military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn.
He then made his way through the building, shooting at anyone he could see.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has revealed new details about the shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee last week that killed four service members.
Armed with an automatic rifle, handgun and numerous rounds of ammunition, the shooter left his vehicle and approached the building.
Abdulazeez killed two more service members before apparently trying to head back inside.
Abdulazeez opened fire on the first facility, a recruiting office, from his rented, silver Mustang convertible and never got out.
The gunman killed Gunnery Sgt. Thomas Sullivan, 40, of Hampden, Mass.; Lance Cpl. Squire “Skip” Wells, 21.
The White House also received criticism for not immediately lowering its flag, although it did lower the flag later in the day. McCreary, an Elks Club employee, said the flags outside the lodge are flown in accordance to national or state directions.
A top military general said that Marines had braved gunfire to save their comrades during the attack.
Twenty Marines and two Navy corpsman were inspecting equipment at the facility at the time of the attack. Then, a few rushed back into the fight.
“Our service members are targets and must be kept safe, but most are barred from carrying military-issued firearms at recruitment centers by a 1992 Department of Defense directive”, Hudson said. He said investigators know where the gunman purchased the guns, but are not yet making that information public. The Pentagon restricts who can carry weapons at domestic military facilities.
The FBI also has found other writings, from late 2013, not long after Abdulazeez was sacked from a power plant job because of a failed drug test, the person close to the family said.
“Our thoughts and prayers as a nation are with the service members killed last week in Chattanooga”, Obama said in a statement.
“The Marines rapidly ran from room to room”, Brier said. When he did, Chattanooga officers confronted him.
After which, Press Secretary John Earnest told several journalists that Obama has offered his honest condolences to the families of those who were killed in the attack.
All service members appear to have been killed by bullets from the same gun, officials said.
It would seem hard to sell the idea that Abdulazeez was not religious, since his last known activities included blog posts on Islam, sending a verse from the Koran to a friend via text message, and searching the Internet for “Islamic materials about whether martyrdom would lead to forgiveness for his sins, like drunkenness and financial debt”, as said by the New York Times.
Bill Lettmkuhl kneels by a makeshift memorial in front of near the Armed Forces Career Center on Friday, July 17, 2015, in Chattanooga, Tenn.
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An uncle in Jordan who agreed to host him in an effort to sober up Abdulazeez now is detained in that country, as indicated by that man’s attorney and a government official. “His family has no role in anything he did in the United States”, the lawyer said of Mr. Abdulazeez.
