| New York Times | - |
CHATTANOOGA,
Tenn. - A gunman opened fire on a Navy and Marine reserve center in
Chattanooga, Tenn., on Thursday, leaving four Marines dead, and wounding
several others, including a Marine recruiter and a police officer,
officials said.
CHATTANOOGA,
Tenn. — A gunman opened fire on a Navy and Marine reserve center in
Chattanooga, Tenn., on Thursday, leaving four Marines dead, and wounding
several others, including a Marine recruiter and a police officer,
officials said. The gunman was also killed.
“Somebody
brutally and brazenly attacked members of our armed services,” the
police chief, Fred Fletcher, said during a news conference.
The
shooting reportedly began at about 10:45 a.m. at a recruiting center on
Lee Highway and ended about 30 minutes later at the reserve center on
Amnicola Highway. Armed with numerous weapons, the gunman fired a
barrage into the reserve center, officials said, and photographs showed
the windows of the site riddled with bullet holes.
United
States Attorney Bill Killian said that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation would take the lead on the case, which he initially called
an “act of domestic terrorism” before backing away, saying that the
investigation would determine how the crime should be labeled.
Chattanooga Mayor Discusses Shooting
Mayor Andy Berke of Chattanooga, Tenn.,
spoke on Thursday after a gunman opened fire at two military centers,
killing at least four Marines.
By AP on Publish Date July 16, 2015.
Photo by Associated Press.
Watch in Times Video »
Later,
a law enforcement official, who did not want to be identified, said the
gunman as Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez. Edward Reinhold, the F.B.I.
special agent in charge in Knoxville, said at the news conference that
officials believed that the gunman was “probably from this area, or at
least is residing in this area prior to the event.”
Mr.
Reinhold said hundreds of agents would be involved in the investigation
by the end of the day, though he cautioned that “we have no indication
that it’s tied to anything at this point.”
Law
enforcement officials said that Mr. Abdulazeez had not been under
investigation by the F.B.I. but that analysts and agents were combing
files for any possible evidence that he had ties to a foreign terrorist
group.
All
of the deaths occurred at the second shooting scene, which sits between
Amnicola Highway and a pathway that runs through Tennessee RiverPark on
the Tennessee River northeast of downtown. Many of the businesses
nearby are light industry.
Marilyn
Hutcheson, who works at Binswanger Glass, just across the street from
the second shooting, told The Associated Press that she heard a barrage
of gunfire around 11 a.m.
“I
couldn’t even begin to tell you how many,” she told The A.P. “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.”
She
ran inside, where she remained locked down with other employees and a
customer. The gunfire continued with occasional bursts for 20 minutes,
she estimated.
“It
is incomprehensible to see what happened and the way that individuals
who proudly serve our country were treated,” the mayor of Chattanooga,
Andy Berke, said. “Two different locations this individual went to, and
as a city, we will respond to this with every available resource that we
have.”
In
a statement, the White House said, “The president has been briefed by
his national security staff on the Chattanooga shooting, and will
continue to get updates as warranted.”
The
episode unnerved one of Tennessee’s largest cities. The Chattanooga
State Community College posted an alert on its website that urged people
on its main campus to remain inside and to close doors. Lee University,
which is near Chattanooga, temporarily ordered a lockdown, the
university said.
Bradley
Square Mall, in the nearby suburb of Cleveland, also said it had
initiated a lockdown, but the mall’s management said that local media
reports of gunfire there were inaccurate. “There have been no shots
fired at Bradley Square Mall,” a post on the mall’s Facebook page said.
It called the lockdown “a safety precaution.”
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