The Daily Journalist.
The gunman who shot and murdered four Marines Thursday during two different attacks at military facilities in Chattanooga, Tenn., has been identified as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez by law enforcement.
The identified murdered Abdulazeez, 24, was born in Kuwait, a U.S. He was reported to be from Hixson, Tenn., just across the river from Chattanooga.
The law enforcement source said preliminary reports indicate Abdulazeez, who also died, was not on the FBI’s radar leading up to Thursday’s attacks. A defense official told Fox he was killed by law enforcement officers and did not commit suicide.
The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center said it has seen nothing so far to connect Abdulazeez to any terrorist organization. But it noted that the Islamic State group has been encouraging extremists to carry out attacks in the U.S.
President Obama, speaking from the Oval Office shortly after returning from a trip to Oklahoma, promised a thorough and prompt investigation, adding it appeared a “lone gunman” was behind the attack.
“It is a heartbreaking circumstance for these individuals who have served our country with great valor to be killed in this fashion,” Obama said.
The gunman first shot up a recruiting center before driving to the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center and killing four Marines before he was shot, authorities said. witnesses said police chased the gunman from the recruiting center to the Center, where the killings took place.
According to some sources one of the Marines who was killed was a “decorated war hero with two Purple Hearts.” The youngest was 19 years old, the source said.
Defense officials said late Thursday a wounded female sailor was in surgery after being shot.
The local Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that Abdulazeez graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 2012. Before that, he graduated from Red Bank High School with a yearbook photo featuring the quote, “My name causes national security alerts. What does yours do?”
Photos of the yearbook photo were sent to the newspaper, which also reported that he was arrested for driving under the influence last April 20.
The New York Times,citing law enforcement officials, reported Abdulazeez’s father had been investigated several years ago for possible ties to a foreign terrorist organization and at one point was on – but later removed from – a terror watch list.
In a statement, Travis Brickey of the Tennessee Valley Authority, said the younger Abdulazeez was a student intern “approximately five years ago.”
The paper also reported that Abdulazeez’s father, Youssuf Abdullazeez, was appointed as a “special policeman” for Chattanooga’s Department of Public Works in March 2005.
Residents and students who knew the suspect said he was a quiet kid, but well-liked.
“He was friendly, funny, kind,” Kagan Wagner told the paper. “I never would have thought it would be him.”
“We are treating this as an act of domestic terrorism,” said Bill Killian, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee.
The names of the Marines who were shot were not immediately released pending notification of their families. The Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center lies along a bend in the Tennessee River, northeast of downtown Chattanooga.
FBI special agent Ed Reinhold said all the dead were killed at the Navy Operational Support Center and Marine Corps Reserve Center Chattanooga. It sits between Amnicola Highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark, a popular park at a bend in the Tennessee River northeast of downtown Chattanooga. It’s in a light industrial area that includes a Coca-Cola bottling plant and Binswanger Glass.
The two entrances to the fenced facility have unmanned gates and concrete barriers that require approaching cars to slow down to drive around them.
Marilyn Hutcheson, who works at Binswanger Glass just across the street from the center on Amnicola Highway, said she heard a barrage of gunfire around 11 a.m.
“I couldn’t even begin to tell you how many,” she said. “It was rapid fire, like pow pow pow pow pow, so quickly. The next thing I knew, there were police cars coming from every direction.”
President Obama was briefed by his national security team on the shooting involving two military sites, according to White House spokesman Eric Schultz.
“This is a very, very terrible situation,” Andy Berke, the city’s mayor told reporters. “I’m very concerned about what’s going on. We need to figure out how to handle it.”
